BED REST. [Dun dun dunnnnnnnnn]

Yep, that's right: those dreaded two words were uttered by my OB on Monday evening, after I'd spent about five hours in L&D contracting. Oy vey.

I went into pre-term labor on Monday morning while I was at work - professional development stuff, not in front of students, thank God - and had to stay in the hospital overnight for monitoring. Everything looks good with the baby, thankfully, and they gave me some medicine to stop the contractions, which seems to have worked pretty well. They went from a nearly-continual rolling contraction, to every ten minutes, to every half hour.... and now they are extremely sporadic. It doesn't stop them entirely, but they are VERY mild right now and only happen now if I am walking around a lot or upset about anything...

Because they don't want to take any chances, they put me on bed rest until I am 36 weeks, which is September 25. So.... no teaching any students (or anyone else, for that matter, haha) for me! It's been pretty stressful trying to scramble and get my Leave of Absence paperwork, sub details, and temporary lesson plans taken care of... not easy to do from the couch! haaaaaa

Everything seems to finally be taken care of at school, and I've relaxed quite a bit, and ironically I am having almost no contractions now... so I guess this bed rest truly was necessary. That doesn't make it any less upsetting, though. They haven't found a true cause for it - they think I may just have an "irritable uterus" that's overly sensitive to stressors... so now I can't exercise (oh darn -ha! j/k), limit use on the stairs, no lifting, no standing for long periods, and basically sitting/laying my ass on the couch for the next three weeks. The doctor said once I hit 36 weeks I can stop taking the meds and go back to work, and if I go into labor that day he won't care.

Uh... what?!

I know the baby will be fine, but that is just a nearly terrifying thought on my part. A whole month early?! I was falling apart at the thought of possibly delivering her at 32 & 1/2 weeks, and simply waiting a few weeks really isn't helping me feel much better about it. They didn't give me any steroids to develop her lungs at this point, but they will need to at 36 weeks. I hate the fact that I'm continually medicating myself to stop ctx now; adding steroids to the mix to atificially pump up her lungs is not any better in my mind.

I just wish my body would have worked the way it was supposed to. I feel like I'm failing at carrying my baby.