When most women find out they are pregnant, they have visions of watching their belly grow, shopping for baby items and enjoying outings with friends and family. Of all the visions swirling in their head about what their pregnancy will look like, very few envision spending days or weeks lying in a hospital bed due to a high-risk pregnancy condition.
But for a handful of women, the safest place during their pregnancy is hospital based bed rest. I was one of those women, having spent 43 days on an antenatal unit (for high-risk pregnancies) and another 14 days with my son in the NICU (neonatal intensive care unit).
When I first peed on the stick and went screaming to my husband and daughter that I was pregnant, I had hoped this pregnancy would be different. Having been confined to 13 weeks of home-based bed rest with my daughter, I was optimistic I would have a “normal” pregnancy this time around.
Sadly this wasn’t the case. I was once again diagnosed with placenta previa, a condition where the placenta covers the cervix. As baby grows, so does the risk for bleeding (due to pressure on the placenta) and pre-term labor.
Since I now lived over 20 minutes from the nearest hospital, it was determined the safest place for me and my baby was the regional hospital over an hour away. This is where I was to spend…
