When life happens only between the walls of a 10ft by 20ft pastel colored room with a simple 3/4 bath, entertaining oneself becomes as essential as it is a highly creative process...or should I say "finding" things to entertain oneself with becomes a very creative process.
It's simple, really. There are 24 hrs. a day...and there are certain things that I know for sure happens during the day at a certain time. So the only times I have to fill are the in between moments.
Between 5:30 and 6:30am, a resident comes in to do her rounds. She checks on my contraction record for the night, listens to my heart and lungs, ask if I have any questions, then wishes me to have a good day. Sometimes around 7:30am, the night nurse and the day nurse switch shifts...so before that happens, the night nurse comes in to bid me farewell (not all the nurses do this, especially since most of us bedrest mommies are still sleeping). About 7:45, breakfast is served. Now, meal times can be entertaining. I pretty much know what I am getting to eat since the hospitality people comes in the day before to take orders for the next day. What gets fun, though, is to figure out how to drag the eating process out longer. It often involves cutting things up into little pieces, arranging the combination of foods on the plate (playing with food is therapeutic...who knew!!), and taking extra time chewing, which is a good thing in itself. Creative eating usually lasts me about 1hr. Shortly after breakfast, the day nurse comes in to say hi, puts her information on my white board, and takes my vitals. She comes back at 10, when I get my meds (okay, don't get excited...I get calcium pills, Zantac 150mg, and Colace...not any mood altering happy pills), to monitor the babies' hearbeats. I love this time. Since there are two babies in there, the nurse places 2 fetal heart monitor on my belly. Baby A (the one on the bottom) is usually pretty cooperative since he is stuck down by my pelvis. Usually the nurse takes no time to find his little heartbeat. Baby B (the one on the top), however, has more room to move around, having him settle down enough to get a consistent heart monitor is a little more tricky. He also dislikes the pressure from the monitors, so he tries to bump it away (which, of course, he can't do). So in addition to his heartbeats, we hear loud thumps a lot. So fun. The nurse usually leaves the monitors on for 1 hr, but would have to come back and check up on the babies often because they are so active and we often would lose the connections. When the babies are being monitored, since I can't move around much, I get on Skype/webcam to see if my sister, who's in Taiwan, is on there. We talk for about 1 hr. or so about random stuff. If she isn't, I would either watch TV, listen to my iPod, or watch a show on the web (thank you ABC, CBS, & NBC for putting full episodes of my favorite shows on your websites!!). The ultrasound gel that goes on the monitors contains salt so if it's left on my belly for too long, it could cause irritation. So, instead of just wiping it off with a wet cloth, I take a shower which I am so glad I have the priviledge to do. This is the only time I get to really stand on my feet for more than 2 minutes. I look forward to the showers since its pretty much the only time I don't have to spend in bed. Besides, I'm a water baby...can't keep me away from water for too long!! The nurse also changes my sheets at this time. After the shower, I put on my Tummy Honey Butter and lotion and give myself a light leg rub to increase circulation. I wear these air hose thingies around my legs all day that squeeze my legs intermittenly to prevent blood clots from forming.
Lunch time is served around 12:15pm. Like breakfast, I try to eat lunch slowly. For the rest of the afternoon, I get on the internet for some online browsing, reading, and working on my blog. Internet time is sometimes pleasantly interrupted by phone calls, text messages, IMs, or visits from friend and family. Afternoons are more free form since the day nurse had done what she needs to do and night nurse doesn't get in until 7:30. I sometimes take a short nap in the afternoon just before dinner if nobody's visiting.
Dinner is served around 5:45pm. During dinner I try to find sometime to watch on TV, and, of course, play with my food and chew a lot. John usually gets here around dinner time and spend some time with me. If he's here, he'll pop in a DVD and we watch the DVD with a couple of interruptions. At 8ish, after the nurses change shifts, my night nurse comes in to say hi and puts her info on the white board. She puts the babies on the monitors which sometimes takes much longer then the day nurse since the babies are more active during the evenings. The nurse leaves and we continue with our DVD. The babies move and the monitors can't get their heartbeats so the nurse would come back. We pause the DVD. The nurse finds the babies again, and leave, we finish watching the DVD. The nurse unhooks all the babies monitors and leaves. At 10pm, the nurse brings me my night meds and makes sure I have enough drinking water to last me throughout the night. She tells me good night (even though she comes in the room in the middle of the night to make sure my machine's doing it's job, monitoring my contractions). John leaves sometimes after that, but calls me to say good night before he goes to sleep. Then I watch my webisodes until I fall asleep.
The next morning, it starts all over again. Yay!!
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