Bed Rest Update

So when I went to my regular 32 week doctor's appointment on Wednesday, I was feeling pretty good. So I was expecting a quick in and out appointment. We were caught by surprise when the the nurse practitioner (my doc was out on vacation) decided to check me and found that I was 1 cm dilated - which was not a change from last time - and 40% effaced - which was a significant change from the last appointment.

The NP was not happy with that. Since my doc was out of town, she decided to go have a phone consult with the covering doc. This doc just happens to be the doctor who delivered Brekken... in a surprisingly fast delivery wherein the doc told me to give a "quick practice push to see where we are" and ended up catching the baby one-handed... one glove, no gown, none of that.

So given my history of "precipitous deliveries" as the NP termed it, they decided it was worrisome that I had effaced so much in the last 2 weeks. She came back in the room and we expected to hear more of the usual - take it easy, don't do to much, etc. So we were quite taken aback when she told me to go home and go to bed. And don't get up except to go to the bathroom. Yikes! Not ready for that! She wanted me to follow up with another appointment on Friday. Of course, on Friday my doc was still out of town. The NP would be out of town. The consulting doc that she had talked to would also be gone. So they set up an appointment for me with a completely new doctor for a non-stress test and OB check.

I tried to behave on Thursday and Friday. I stayed down in either the bed or the recliner. I may have made a slight detour or two on my way back and forth... but don't listen to Aaron when he tells you I'm a bad patient. ;)

We went to the doc on Friday and the non-stress test was just fine. Baby is very healthy and moving all over the place. The doc did a quick check and said I'm still 1 cm and about 50%. So a slight change, but not much. In the process of the visit, he also made me feel like a complete idiot for being there at all. He basically said that because it's my 4th child, of course I have lots of contractions. And of course my cervix will start to change, that's the whole point of contractions. I asked him if I needed to stay on bed rest, and he implied that if I here HIS patient, he'd never have prescribed bed rest in the first place. But since I'm NOT his patient, he wouldn't take me off bed rest, just loosened it up a bit and told me to follow up with my doc on Monday. I saw him for all of about 3 minutes and that was enough to make me feel like we'd wasted his time and shouldn't have bothered coming in. I won't be switching to his practice any time soon.

In the meantime, I feel like I should get to be off bed rest, since the doc was so dismissive. Just the nurse practitioner being extra cautious while the doc was out of town, right? Aaron disagrees. Before leaving for work today (Saturday) he gave the kids strict instructions to monitor my activities. Every time I moved to get out of the chair, Haley questioned me on why I was getting up and reminded me that I was only supposed to go to the bathroom. When I attempted to go to the bathroom and just incidentally run a bath for the kids (during which I could certainly be sitting down and resting), Haley informed me that "Daddy said you're not allowed to give us a bath." She and Preston refused to have bath time. So I stayed in the chair.

I will be following up with my doc on Monday morning. I'm hoping she'll side with the other doctor (much as I didn't like him) and let me off bed rest after she sees the appointment notes and test results that he was sending over to her office. I'm willing to keep working from home - though it would be helpful if I could go in at least one day a week. And I'm willing to give in to Aaron on the bus issue - he doesn't want me making the walk to and from the bus stop, so if I do go in, I'll drive and skip the walk. But I REALLY hope that I don't have to stick with bed rest for another couple of weeks. I have to admit that I'm not very good at it...