A Mother's Love

Perhaps one of the most ubiquitous sayings is that there is no love stronger than a mother's love for her children.  People say and hear it so much at that it almost loses its impact due to the callousness that repetition can bring.  "When you're a mother, you'll understand," I used to hear my mother say.  "You won't be able to comprehend a mother's love until you're a mother yourself," almost every one of my friends would say when I asked. I can now join them because I understand.

Yes, I love and adore my family.  I love my parents, my siblings, my dear friends, and my husband.  I love them dearly.  But, the love I have for my children surpasses any love.

1.) Looking them in the eyes is like seeing everything beautiful in the world in two little eyeballs.  When I look at my son, I can see myself, my husband, little bits of other family members, and pure beauty.  When I look at my daughter's eyes, I see the crystal blue eyes of my grandparents that I never got to know.  My children carry the legacy of my family.

2.) When I say that I wish I could take all their discomfort away and would happily take it on myself, I MEAN IT.  Do I wish I could take the discomfort of others away? Of course I do.  Would I take on their pain begrudgingly? Probably.  But my children, there is no question.  I don't have to think for any amount a time about the answer.

3.) I would sacrifice my life for theirs.  I've always valued life to the fullest.  The thought of the leaving this world and not knowing what's next or if there is anything next can be terrifying.  But would I face that to save my child? ABSOLUTELY.

4.) Lord help anyone who ever hurts them.

Bed Rest

 Starting on week 26, my OB, who has delivered more multiple pregnancies than any other physician in Birmingham, usually puts women with multiples on light bed rest and then follows up as necessary.  My circumstances were slightly different due to my high risk pregnancy, which I will elaborate on at another time, he put me on bed rest starting at 22 weeks and then full bed rest starting at 26.  Let me define what I could do.

Partial Bed Rest: Just relax, have the husband do all the chores around the house, get up to take a shower, get up to make a light meal, but then go sit back down and relax.

Full Best Rest: "Girl you better not get up out dat bed or dem babies might fall out."  "Are you doing dishes? Oh I KNOW you are not doing dishes! You go lay back down!"

Yeah, this was where you basically wake up, lie in bed all day, can't do any chores, can only leave the house for the weekly doc's appt., get up to pee, and take a short shower every day.  Then, back to bed.  I wasn't strictly made to lie flat on my side but, to be honest, it was much more comfortable than sitting up propped on pillows because that hurt my tailbone like crazy.


Here's the million dollar question: "How do you go from suddenly feeling fantastic in your pregnancy and wanting to get everything in the world done and being completely anal about your house to just lying there and stay sane?"

Well, this was something I had to figure out over time.  But here were some of my coping strategies.

1) Psychology.  Just plain psychology.  I'm about to be popping out two children whose lives I will be completely responsible for.  I will not sleep.  I won't be able to lounge around, so why not enjoy lounging around anyway?

2) Ummm... I kinda like lounging a bit anyway.  Not all day every day lounging, but I treated it as a huge binge.

3) No chores.  Enough said.

4) My husband cooked my delicious meals every day and night and brought them to me in bed.

5) My mother brought me her kindle, which had a mix of obscure sci-fi, more obscure sci-fi, and the Hunger Games Books.  Needless to say I read those and became obsessed.  She also brought me a cross-stitching kit, so I cross-stitched two bibs for the babes and started on a blanket for them (which I still haven't finished.)

6) Couponing.  Hey, no better time to get frugal than when entering parenthood! So, I got really into couponing and researched all the stores' sales and deals of the week and matched up coupons, etc.. I made detailed lists and gathered the coupons in an envelope and hubs made the shopping trips and face timed me when he had a question.  That was a great time.  We stockpiled a lot of stuff, some of which we still have.

7) Netflix, HuluPlus, YouTube

Right around the end of my pregnancy I felt compelled to watch something silly so I chose Flavor of Love ft. Flavor Flav. After watching the magic of New York, I saw that her spin-off show was also on HuluPlus, so I invested my valuable rest time into watching men act ridiculous.  When my water broke I was listening to men fight over her.  Anyone in the mid-2000's that watched cable probably remembers this glorious garbage.