House Rest

The past four and a half weeks have been extremely stressful, but now I finally feel like I can breath a sigh of relief. Yesterday was my last day of work and now I am officially on house rest. At my 24-week appointment my doctor informed me that it is his protocol to have me stop working at 28 weeks. I laughed and said, "You're joking, right!" He wasn't, and then he assured me that by the time 28 weeks came I would be glad to stop working. Was he ever right! He explained that in your typical singleton pregnancy the baby weighs about 2.5-3 lb at 28 weeks. With twins you have to double that, making up to 6 lb of baby, plus the extra placenta, etc. In other words, my body is worn out and I look like my due date should be in less than 3 weeks, not in 3 months! So now I'm on house rest for the rest of this pregnancy, which just means I should stay at home and rest as much as possible, but I don't necessarily need to be in bed.

Between 24 and 28 weeks I worked and stressed myself out! I honestly thought I was going to have a mental or emotional breakdown at least every few days! Here's what I was dealing with:

Work: All the sudden I had to rush to hire a long-term sub who could take my class for the remainder of the year. Fortunately I was able to find one, and she's wonderful! But I had to get my students in gear to be able to handle the transition successfully, organize my classroom, plan lots of curriculum and lesson plans. . . and the biggest stress of all was to work out my medical leave with the school district. First they informed me that they weren't going to pay me at all for the time I needed off. Stress!!!! But after combating "the district" with several emails and attending an appeal with the director of personnel, they finally decided that I am no longer a provisional employee with the district (which means I shouldn't have to worry about getting laid off again this summer) and that they could approve an up to 85-day medical leave with no deduction in pay. What a blessing! I'll be missing 63 days of work.

Prepping for babies: Lots of running around buying baby supplies. I'm a Craig's List frugal person, which also means that it takes more effort than just ordering things from BabiesRUs online! I've done a pretty good job though! I've found 2 swings, 2 bouncers, 2 matching cribs (that one was a challenge and I had to drive up to SLC to accomplish it, but I was really set on matching cribs!), a great stash of clothes, blankets, burp cloths, etc. Oh yeah, we had to get a new vehicle too as we're outgrowing my Honda Accord. Dan found a great Honda Odyssey at the auction and we've sold my car.

My body: I'm big and tired. I can't breath or sleep very well. And I enjoy many of those discomforts that usually come late in pregnancy. I'll get a picture up soon. About two weeks ago I was having a lot of contractions and lower back pain. I was pretty sure it wasn't labor pains, but knew that I would forever regret it if it was and I hadn't stopped it, so Dan and I went to the hospital to get things checked out. They were definitely contractions, but it appeared that I wasn't in active labor, so they gave me a shot of Terbutaline to stop the contractions and sent me home. I haven't had any major problems since then. I'm pretty sure that half the reason I had those contractions was due to stress!

My house: Amy's in full toddler mode and drags everything all over the house. It's a wreck, and most days I'm too tired to clean up, so it just keeps getting worse!

So what have I done so far on my first day off? Not much. Haven't bathed, haven't cleaned the house, just messed around online looking at crib bedding sets. I plan to clean the house, prep the new nursery, clean out closets, update the blog from the past two months. . . but maybe I'll start tomorrow!