Wednesday, December 13, 2006

I got a call last week from a nurse affiliated with my insurance company. He wanted to check on me now that I was at home and to let me know of resources available to me, including his direct phone number if I had any questions. Impressive, I thought.

One of the resources he told me about is Sidelines - an organization for women dealing with high risk pregnancies. I forgot about it until now and in checking out the website, I found this great list of Bed Rest’s Silver Lining: 15 Benefits of Taking Pregnancy Lying Down. The whole list applies, but my favorites are:

2. He can run the house. (He no longer puts the first load of wash in the machine and leaves it to mold. He regularly fills--and empties--the dishwasher, notices when were out of milk, creates a shopping list, hits more than one store to get the goods, buys in bulk and looks out for sales.) [This was actually true before the bed rest.]

10. I relish my babys increasingly zealous kick-boxing because I know hes well and happy, and that matters more than anything.

11. Forget any worries that my new husband loves me conditionallyfor the sex, or how I take care of business around the house, for my fanatical energy, or for my lithe body. These are a distant memory and still he treats me like his bride.

12. No doubts left about how hell handle Real Life with me. As our honeymoon giddiness has been replaced by his holding me from 3 to 5 a.m. while I await crisis-level bleeding, as well as preparing my meals and cleaning up after me, weve cruised seamlessly through a decades worth of marital developmental stages in less than a year.

13. Improbably, he still makes me feel like a honeymooner, despite my girth, exhaustion and periodic fear. Curling up together on Bed Rest Central beats a night at a Parisian café with a new lover. I feel this exquisite bittersweet appreciation of each moment we spend together thats intensified by the knowledge that a hospital bed may beckon at any moment.

14. I am finally ready to have my baby. All this lying around finally put a stop to my obsessive worries about handling the transition to motherhood, leaving in its wake the searing desire to get on with toughening up my nipples and changing diapers for the kick-boxer Im carrying.

15. Im actually looking forward to being liberated by childbirth. While my fellow expectant mothers anticipate losing mobility and independence, I cant wait to be off bed rest and carry my baby and his hundreds of accoutrements through the house and out into the world. Ill be free!