It Takes a Village: High Risk Pregnancy

They say it takes a village to raise a child. I completely agree with that. What people don’t realize is when you have a high risk pregnancy that gets into questionable territory, that also takes a village. With my conditions, I fall under the high risk pregnancy bandwagon. The first trimester of my pregnancy was great. I was one of those lucky snots that didn’t have morning sickness. I felt great and other than feeling exhausted 24 hours a day, everything was great. The fist few weeks of second trimester were great too. I had zero complaints. My bi-weekly doctors visits were going great and everything was looking good. We were so thankful to have such a great pregnancy that far. 

Then one day, a regular doctors appointment turned into sending me to the birth center to make sure I wasn’t contracting. Talk about a total shock. I knew this was a possibility but everything had been going so good. Now, this wasn’t exactly where things got really hairy. I got put on modified bedrest. Which really wasn’t that bad. I was supposed to be sitting with my feet up more than I was up walking around. I also wasn’t supposed to be doing lifting and I was banned from work. Which to a farmer means, I was riding our Ranger out to my office and I was at least doing my office work and getting out of the house for a while. 

 

After that my trips to the birth center became more frequent and more urgent. Instead of spending a few hours like the beginning I started spending the night. Then, the dreaded words came out of my doctors mouth and were written on my discharge papers, ‘Full Bedrest’. I am willing to do anything to get this baby here safely and healthy, but preferably not for a few more weeks. We are so thankful we still have options and each day of cooking means a healthier, stronger baby after he or she is born. We cannot wait to meet our little one, but we’re really not ready for that yet. 

 

The hard part is trying to keep life moving somewhat regularly. Obviously my life will not be vaguely normal for a while and that’s ok. But my husband has to work and he is helping to pick up some of my slack on the farm too. Plus, my parents are picking up the rest, when they already had a full schedule before I went on bedrest. If you want to talk about some guilt, that is a whole semi-load. Then, I cannot cook. So we have family and friends bringing food over to help sustain us. We also have lots of family helping clean, do grocery shopping and tons of little stuff you normally wouldn’t think of. 

 

We are so thankful to all of these amazing people because we couldn’t survive with out their help. We appreciate every single task regardless of how big or small it may be. Like I said at the beginning, this pregnancy has turned into a village of loving, dedicated people helping us out. It has been hard, but we are still so thankful for our little busy body. As difficult as it is we know it will be worth every bit of help we have to take and every minute of a numb butt I have to endure.