Tertia on Bed Rest

Her first experience of bed rest was during her pregnancy with Ben. Ben had been a twin, but Luke, his brother, had died in utero at 21 weeks. All in all, she spent five weeks in hospital with Ben, until he was born.

Her second bed rest experience was when she was pregnant with Kate and Adam, now three years old. This time, she spent 14 weeks at home until the twins arrived by caesarean. For the first month, she was permitted short walks, but she spent most of her time on the couch. The second and third months were also spent on the couch, but she was allowed one hour on and one hour off the couch.

Twiddling her thumbs

Unlike me, Tertia likes things very ‘feng shui’. She’s a no-nonsense kind of girl, who hates too much clutter around her. She also thinks tv is a waste of time, so she kept herself busy on bed rest by reading, writing, eating and sleeping.

Positive about bed rest

Most of us hate the thought of being confined to bed and we see bed rest as a kind of sentence. For Tertia though, it was a relief. Although she was anxious about the pregnancy, she was absolutely convinced it was the right thing to do. Even though it was a stressful time for her, because she felt it afforded her too much time to think, it also forced her to take things easy physically.

The best thing about bed rest for her? She loved bonding with her babies. “I felt their every move. It was very special,” she says of her time with Kate and Adam in utero. “All in all, I’m very grateful for bed rest.”

How she survived

I asked her if she could think of anything particularly thoughtful that someone did for her while on bed rest and she had this touching story to tell:

“My mom would come every second day to the hospital and sit with me for two hours. Sometimes she would talk; sometimes she would just sit there with me. She took me to all my scans and each time she would take my dirty underwear home and bring me clean ones the next time. My mom was the reason I survived bed rest!”

Be sure to read Tertia's blog, So Close.