It's a Pity Party and You're Invited

Being on bed rest, I have experienced a wide-range of emotions; more so now than any other time in my pregnancy. I know the emotional ups and downs that can be brought on by "pregnancy hormones" but I think when you spend 24 hours a day, 7 days a week in your bed, staring at the same four walls -- those emotions begin to have extreme highs and extreme lows.

A few days ago, my in-laws came to visit and help Geoff out with some things around the house. They worked on moving furniture out of our spare bedroom which is eventually going to be the nursery. They made us dinner and each of them came up periodically to visit me in my "dorm room" or "studio apartment" as it has been lovingly called. Throughout their visit, there were times when I was left alone -- not many, but enough that made me feel like I was being neglected by the end of the evening. The isolation you feel when you spend the majority of your days alone is pretty extreme, and when there are people around you, you want to spend every moment of time enjoying a human connection. When they left, I had a minor meltdown -- poor Geoff. I made him feel bad for the small times that I was left by myself, and for that I feel badly for now. It was just an eruption of emotions -- which he is used to, as I tend to do this quite often -- pregnant or not. Now he feels compelled to be upstairs with me every moment of time that he is home -- I know that is not possible, but he is just trying to be a good husband and do what he thinks it is that I want.

I also got weepy recently thinking about all of the things I am missing out on while being on bed rest. All of my friends have had uneventful pregnancies -- they've been able to continue working, shop for their baby, work on setting up their nursery, register for cute baby stuff, have people gush about their growing bellies and even the horrible personal space violation of strangers coming up to them in public and touching their bellies. A thing that I was not looking forward to experiencing, but now that I won't have an opportunity to experience it -- I feel like I got gypped.

I am also mourning the fact that I won't be able to have a "traditional" shower. Once I was given the strict bed rest orders, we halted the plans for our shower that was to take place in early January. We will try to do something after the girls arrive, but I fear that will be just as hard since I know it will be sheer chaos around here. I am working on building a registry, but as I do that, each item I add I think to myself, "we're going to need that before they come" -- so there won't be much left to buy once the shower rolls around. Now, saying it out loud, I fear that sounds selfish -- but every other pregnant woman gets to experience this grand event, and it is one of those "rites of passage" that I looked forward to.

I feel as if I am whining -- but I'm really not. We had to work so hard to get here, three long years filled with lots of tests, doctors, procedures, worrying, crying and stress and we are finally pregnant. I should be grateful for that -- and I am, very grateful. But part of the dream of becoming pregnant is experiencing all of these "rites of passage" while you are pregnant. I know that this is most likely my one and only shot at being pregnant, so I'm just a little bummed on being left out of the fun.