Pre-Labor @ 26 Weeks - Mesa,AZ

E.,

First and foremost for the health of you and your baby you must try and try real hard not to allow yourself to overly stress. Stress can greatly impact your pregnancy. Remember your uterus is a muscular organ and if you tense it tenses thus, contractions. Try to take a warm tub to allow your body calmness and peace.

Second feed your baby! Your pregnant body needs food for you and your baby check out www.blueribbonbaby.org good protein like chicken, eggs and milk.

Next drink lots of water! Drink half of your body weight in ounces so if you weigh 140 pounds you need 70 ounces of water a day. That is in addition to juice and milk.

Hope this helps!

M. the Midwife

My best friend has spent the last 3 months of her pregnancy on bed rest due to prelabor. she still has contractions all day long and even says they are painful. She's been able to keep him in there but very uncomfortably. Her husband was just as nonsupportive and it took the doctor seriously sitting him down and going over all the worst case scenarios for him to lay off of her about the household chores. They were able to take her off of that awful medicine and just bring her into the dr. once a week to check her.

As for the 3 year old at home you need some help. Rally your friens and family to help you even if its to give you an hour or two of rest a day. Don't pick him up just cuddle a lot while sitting. I know that's hard but You don't want to have a baby at 26 weeks.

Men unfortunatly can be quite useless sometimes. they will never understand what we are going through. I'm 35 weeks along and this guy bolted early on because he could handle the fact that I was sick all day. His friends have since yelled at him and called him selfish. (even the guys) and now he wants to be part of the pregnancy. Make him see and understand that growing a baby is next to impossible and that it's serious business. Ask him to imagine all that you're going throuhg. and have the dr. talk to him.

Good luck. I hope you have a happy and healthy delivery.

I live in Mesa too. Where in Mesa do you live? I'm off of the 202 and Mc Kellips

Your post sounds almost exactly like something I would have posted with my first daughter. from 22 weeks on I was on bedrest, taking meds everyday to keep contractions away. My husband was very supportive though and if he wasnt I just dont know what I would have done...BIG HUGS to you. You really need to somehow get your husband to understand how serious this is. Make him go to an appt with you to talk to the DR. If you/him feel like you really need to make him dinner than go to the store and get the frozen crockpot dinners, they are easy and you wont have to put alot of work into it. The most important thing is you try to stay off your feet as much as possible, drink A LOT of water. A lot of people start preterm labor in the summer becuase of the heat here, not drinking extra water really dehydrates you (thats what my Dr. said anyway)I am sorry I really dont have any advise about getting your husband to understand. I ended up still haveing my daughter early but only by 5 weeks. She is a healthy ACTIVE 9 year old now. I know you are on bedrest and home now but I would try to still send your 3 year old to daycare so you can truely rest.

Wow! My heart really went out to you when I was reading your message. I have a three month old and spent the last 6 weeks of my pregnancy on moderate bedrest. I don't have any grand advice but I was trying to remember when made an impretion on my husband. He was pretty good at helping out but I think some of that was, first of all having known other couples who have gone through it and so he saw how their husbands helped and how little the wives were allowed to do so he'd had examples to pull from. Also, my mom, his mom and ladies from our church immediately jumped in and were doing so much, like laundry and meals for us, that I think he thought if they took it so seriously maybe he should too. Would your mom be willing to help you out..perhaps with some meals or light housecleaning? Maybe if he sees other people concerned, he'll realize you're not just over reacting...it's something to be taken seriously.
Some other things that helped were having some frozen meals on hand, like those crock pot meals from the freezer section. I also considered hiring someone to clean the house but never did.
I'll be praying for you.

Wow, I don't think your husband understands what the could be doing to you and the baby. You NEED to stay off your feet. He NEEDS to be making you the food. I was on bedrest for 8 weeks with our first baby. It is very importmant to follow the Drs orders. It will be eaiser for him to step up now then to be in the hospital with a premie for 8+ weeks. Make sure he knows that. Good luck with the little one an the big brother!! Congradulations. One more thing, if you are involved at a church, they should be able to provide a meal plan for you, dinners provided by others every other night can really help out with the stress of not being able to cook. Look into it.