44,640 minutes: How do you measure a month? Measure in love. I have reached my one month anniversary here at The BirthPlace and looking back over these past 31 days, I can't stop thinking about all of the people in my life who have reached out to me in my time of need to offer support and love. I am blessed to be going through all of this during a time when I can talk to loved ones many miles away via FaceTime and actually see them instead of just hearing their voice. I have also been able to keep up with what my cats are doing back at home using FaceTime as well! At the beginning of this bed rest journey, I was extremely scared, I was in shock, and I could not believe that I would be living in a hospital for the next four months. From the start, I had numerous family members and friends jump right in to make sure I did not feel so isolated and it has helped my well-being tremendously. Thank you!
Since this was my first hospital stay ever, I had no idea what it felt like to be the one lying in bed since I was always the one doing the visiting. Unfortunately, I had my fair share of hospital visits with my mom throughout most of my life due to her on-going illnesses. I remember that when my mom was admitted to the hospital in April 2007, no one knew if she would be released or if this was it. We realized pretty quickly that she was probably not coming home and she stayed hospitalized until she passed away in September 2007. For those five months, I was going back and forth to the hospital to visit her and saw her about every other day but that still was never enough for her. Now I know why.
Other than getting all of my feelings out through this blog, having visitors has been the best medicine for my emotional health. On days when no one comes by, it gets extremely lonely here and as much as I try to fill my time up with writing, reading, or watching movies, I still yearn for human contact. Thankfully, I typically have a steady flow of visitors, but I now realize what my mom was talking about. Even though this hospital stay is temporary, the day to day isolation is really hard to handle. I keep my outlook very positive because I am on bed rest for such a wonderful reason and I look forward to meeting my babies in the very near future. Even with this "glass half full" mentality, I still have my sad moments which pretty much only show up when I am left alone in my room, especially late at night. Luckily, my husband spends the night numerous times during the week which helps out a lot. Brett has his own bed since sleeping extremely inclined on a twin hospital bed is not too comfortable for one person, let alone two. The hard part is the next morning when he has to go back home to work and take care of the cats because I hate having to say goodbye. One remedy for my loneliness which keeps happening more and more is being able to feel the twins move inside of me. I am really never truly alone here because I have the two of them dancing in my belly! I know that the more these movements happen, the happier I will be because it means that they are growing and that we will all be out of here soon.
*The song "Seasons of Love" is from the 1996 Broadway musical RENTwhich is one of my all-time favorite musicals. This song opens act two and talks about how a year should be measured not using time (525,600 minutes), but measured with love. The theme of the song is how I am viewing my time here so that I am not focusing solely on how many days I have left...but none the less, marking an X on my calendar everyday is still very satisfying! I am thinking about the love I receive from everyone who is taking time out of their busy lives to visit me or connect with me over the phone or internet. I even got a huge surprise the other day from a visitor I was not expecting at all. My dad showed up out of the blue to visit me and it made me so happy because for my dad, getting out of the house to visit someone at the hospital is not something he does, especially after what happened with my mom. Even so, he came to see me for a brief visit and I told him that it really meant a lot to me having him here. Hopefully, this visit will not be a one-time thing and he will come back again. With one month down and three more to go, I will continue to measure in love and can't wait to spend more time with the important people in my life.
On a side note, as an added bonus for coming to visit, we have set up a "Splash Down Pool" for friends and family to gamble and guess when the babies will be born. Since this is like a Super Bowl pool, the winner will get the pool of money if they pick the correct date! Good luck!
The start of 24 weeks!
Jump into the pool