A Day of Rest (ok, maybe two days)

Snuggling with Winston the Teddy
Bear yesterday. A friend gave us him
as a gift for the baby. Just keeping him
company until Baby arrives.

I mentioned in my last post that my back pain is acting up again.  I think I may have aggravated something on my hike Wednesday.  It's basically on the left side of my lower back and if I turn the wrong way (like to dry my hands after washing dishes) or bend the wrong way (like to get something out of the fridge) or lift my leg up (like to go up the stairs) or turn over (while sleeping), there is a seizing, sharp pain.  To summarize, it's not fun.

Yesterday I decided to take the day off from my exercise routine and basically everything else so that I could rest my back.  This meant no cleaning, no errand running, no laundry and I ended up not leaving my house.  I caught up on some writing, reading and knitting and it was a good day to do it.  We had a rare gray and rainy day yesterday in LA.  I swanned around in my maternity support brace and thought I'd be good as new today.

Nope. Still hurts.

It doesn't seem to be as severe today, which is encouraging, so I'm going to try to get a few things done instead of mandating a day of rest.  I know that a day of rest sounds wonderful - and I am beyond lucky that I could take one - but just doing nothing can get really boring.  And make you feel like you're an unproductive human being.  I'm sure this a deeply ingrained character flaw but I always feel like I should be embarrassed for having a lazy day.  I feel a sense of guilt.  But then I remind myself that I'M GROWING A HUMAN* and I should give myself a break.

After I take care of a few errands today, I'm going to spend the afternoon resting.  I saw that The Business of Being Born is available for free on-demand and I think I'm going to finally force myself to watch it.  I've heard nothing but great things about this documentary but I've been very hesitant to sit down with it.  First of all because I know I'm going to have a hospital birth and I know that they give a lot of scary statistics about doing that.  So I didn't want to flood my head with negative thoughts.  But I also know that the hospital I'm going to is one of the best in the country so that eases my mind a bit.  I've decided to watch it because I am toying with the idea of having a natural birth and since I've educated myself on the pain management options at my hospital, it's time I educate myself on the flip-side of the equation.  A very big part of me wants to just go into labor and delivery in an "ignorance is bliss" bubble but I know that, in the end, being educated is going to help me understand and feel more in control of all my options once the time comes.  And knowledge will help lower my stress levels.  And hopefully that will help me have a smoother delivery.

These are the things I tell myself.

(* = did you see Modern Family this week? Gloria is like, "Aye, I'm so tired." And Manny is like, "How can you be tired? You just woke up." And she shouts back, "I don't know...maybe because I'm TURNING FOOD INTO A HUMAN!"  My husband gave the side-eye because I am always saying this to him.  "I'm tired. It's a lot of work making a baby!")