WEEK 23 : Week by Week Incompetent Cervix Pregnancy Guide - COPING WITH BEDREST

NOTE : For the regular advice on Week 23, I suppose there are hundreds of other websites to tell you how it goes. This blog serves to supplement those sites, my personal favourites being What To Expect, Baby Centre UK and Parents. Do take note, however that I am not a professional physician, I practise law for a living and the only thing I know about incompetent cervix is through my own experience as a mother of 2 and a 21 week old baking in the oven! :)  The purpose of this blog then is just to simply share the joys and heartaches, the blessings and curses, the sadness and happiness and the disappointments and the pleasant surprises of our journey as a mom with an incompetent cervix.
 
 
I remember my last pregnancy (my 2 and half year old was born April 2012), when I was at 23 weeks around Christmas season.  I was going about my usual Christmas shopping, carolling even with the local choir group, and preparing for the most wondrous time of the year 2011. I am expecting an April baby again, but this time around, things are not as fa-la-la merry.  This is my 3rd cerclage and my obgyn observed during the procedure that my cervix was now badly damaged and there were a lot of scar tissues from the previous cerclages.  Bedrest is no longer an option, but a necessity. 

(yup that was me... the one in pants... only I was allowed to wear pants as I couldn't find  a skirt which fits)

Yes, if all things go well with your preventive cerclage (even if it's a transvaginal cerclage and not a transabdominal one, which most will tell you no bedrest is needed with the latter) then more likely than not, you will be able to go on with your normal activities.  Truly, those websites which tell you that now is probably the time when you feel your best - they are not that far wrong.  The nausea is definitely gone, your little one's kicks and punches are assurances that she is doing well in there, and you are no longer looking like a whale yet.  So yea, you should be feeling well.  But some of us may be feeling the woes of an INCOMPETENT CERVIX pregnancy at its peak now, and there are many reasons for it (do read Week 22 here).

But fret not! SURELY there are some stuff you can do lying down right? Here are some ideas :

1) Read all those novels which you bought at the book fair 3 years ago which are gathering dust on your bookshelf!

2) Entertain your older children with the good ole Monopoly, Scrabble or Snake and Ladder!

3) When was the last time you actually sat down through a 2 hour movie? Well, now is the time!

4) Go ahead, feel beautiful and pampered with a pedicure/manicure session!

5) Start a journal for you little one, you can keep it in a box file together with her/his 1st foot print, congratulatory cards and other momentos for your baby's reference in her/his later years! Or if you wish, start a Facebook account for him/her right now!

6) Write a blog, like what I'm doing now. Or write that novel you have always wanted to. Or that poem, perhaps even that song you have always wanting to write all your life but never found the time to!

7) It's almost Christmas right? Bring out those art and craft stuff (ok, get hubby to dig them out from the store room) and start working on handmade Christmas decor and greeting cards with your older kids!

8) Shopping online anyone? Well, I have no choice but to do that (thank God for technology) for my Christmas shopping this year!  

9) Get chatting in parenting forums, incompetent cervix forums, make friends with other mommies from all around the world who understand what you are going through (you will realise that these strangers understand you more than the 600 'friends' you have in your Facebook friend list)

10) JUST LIE BACK! Relax, stare at nothingness and revel in the fact that you are pregnant, sleep, nap, hum a few Christmas tunes, and remember to thank God and sing praises to Him for all the blessings in your life!

1 more week to viability! HURRAY!