bed rest, day 3

i'm actually not bored yet.

the truth is that i have a million things that i can do while sitting on my butt in front of a computer. my summer prep for the new school year alone could keep me busy for the entire week (not that i've devoted much time to that yet... but i think i will). it sucks to know that my entire family is currently together in my hometown getting ready for my cousin's wedding today, and that my carefully planned and totally surprise baby shower scheduled for sunday has been indefinitely postponed. but i have no doubt that i made the right choice, and being here relaxing really isn't all that bad.

yet.

i've been most surprised/pleased by the change in how i feel. for the three or four days before i went to the doctor this week i had been plagued by what i just assumed was third trimester discomfort. my body ached all over and every time i had to get up or even change position i felt like i was doing some kind of olympic-level exercise. but worst of all was my back. out of nowhere over the weekend i started having excruciating lower back pain, like i've never felt before. i didn't think twice about it at the time (seemed like fairly normal pregnancy stuff to me), but within hours of starting the medications it went away... completely.

it's hard to say how much the bed rest contributed, but i do know that before the past couple of days sitting down and especially laying back was the absolutely least comfortable thing i could possibly do. i was doing it quite a bit anyway, because my back hurt so much that moving around was painful, too, and after being active during the day all i wanted to do was NOT MOVE in the afternoon/evening. i told the hubby that bed rest might kill me mostly because the position the doctor most wanted me to be in (reclined with my legs up on the couch) was like hell on earth for me. the past few days i'd mostly been sitting straight up in a chair for support, or laying on my side. not that it helped that much.

but i kid you not, by wednesday night (having taken only one dose of one medication) the pain was starting to subside. by yesterday morning it was totally, 100% gone. all my aches, all the back pain... gone. yes, i was also on bed rest during that time, but i don't think my downtime from 3pm until noon the following day was all that different than what it had been in previous days. i really think the medication is what brought the relief, which makes me wonder... is it just because of its anti-inflammatory properties? or could my pain have actually been pre-labor symptoms? it's possible, from what i've read. while some back pain is normal during pregnancy, it seems that sudden and severe back pain that doesn't go away no matter what can be a more serious concern.

either way, i'm clearly thrilled to be feeling better. i can (though, of course, i'm not allowed to) move around like i was a couple weeks ago, feeling mostly like myself instead of a gigantic, unwieldy ball of pain. i'm hoping that perhaps this means that my cervix has been responding to true labor symptoms in my body that the medication was able to stop, thus allowing me to go about my life while staying on the meds for the next couple of months. that would be quite lovely. nothing to do but wait and see what the doctor says on wednesday. until then... maybe it's nap time.