Needless to say, these past nine months have been nothing short of stressful. Being pregnant has this way of intensifying everything else that goes on in my life. We ended the bike trip in Colorado early last August, and I was fully expecting to go back to my former job at the elementary school I taught at just a few weeks after finishing the trip. Unfortunately, I was involuntarily transferred to a middle school for reasons I'll never fully know. I cried for weeks about this, which probably should have been my first clue that I was pregnant. Then in October, my dad passed away, leaving me with this indescribable loss in the midst of something so exciting in my life. I think about him lots, and his picture is on our fridge, right next to the ultrasound pictures of our baby.
All the while, this year at work has been the most stressful thing I've experienced yet. Being at a new school, teaching curricula that I haven't taught since my student teaching days, and dealing with the craziness of middle school students brought on feelings of complete inadequacy. I ended my 7th hour class on an almost daily basis feeling utterly defeated, trying hard to fight back tears and compose myself before 8th hour began. I tried everything I could think of to make my 7th hour class tolerable, and I got nowhere. Almost the entire staff knew about the yahoos that were in that class, and they would just shake their heads in sympathy. Administration wasn't much help, either. I continued to try so hard to rise above it, coming home and bawling to Nate about my frustrations. To relieve the stress, I'd follow the guidelines that were suggested: exercising, eating well, getting enough sleep, etc.
Months of this, coupled with not sleeping at night, turned into a nasty cycle... I routinely woke up at 2 or 3 in the morning to go to the bathroom, or for no reason at all. And then the thinking would start... What else can I do to make work better? I couldn't turn the thinking off, despite trying to fall back asleep. I'd be up for a couple of hours, occasionally falling asleep right before I had to wake up to go to work.
In early March, Nate had had enough: "Why can't your turn your brain off?" Good question--I didn't know how to answer that. He suggested that I talk to our midwife and let her know what was going on at work. I really didn't want to; I suppose because that meant that I wasn't tough enough. But what was I trying to prove? That I could make it through to the end? I know about opinions, and I didn't want people forming one about me and my "inability" to work.
But, at the urging of Nate and my mom, I told the midwife at my last appointment (I actually started bawling even before I could say anything), and she talked to me about the risk of preterm labor for women who are stressed during their pregnancy and not sleeping enough. She put in orders for modified bed rest, which basically means that I'm supposed to take it easy and not work. I was off all last week, and will be until the baby comes. And guess what? I slept through the night after my last day of work. I've been feeling well-rested and less anxious about the birth. I'm calmer, which is a wonderful feeling to have. Sure, I've had to endure some people's comments and opinions about this: "You think this is not sleeping? Just wait, honey." Ultimately, it's the best decision for me and the baby, and I'm glad I did it.
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