No More Bed Rest!

Hooray! We had our 36 week appointment on Friday, and Dr. Fitzgerald took me off bed rest and said we're in the clear. The baby can come at any time, and no one's going to try and prevent it. I celebrated by climbing some stairs.

Three weeks of bed rest took me from healthy pregnant lady to invalid with sausage toes. My feet are so swollen I can only wear clogs (a problem considering we received a dumping of snow on Thursday night), my fingers are so swollen I can't feel the tips of my fingers, and my face is unrecognizable to me (Dave claims I look exactly the same, but this is not true, not true at all.) I am currently icing my ankle and wearing a wrist brace. You'd think that I am injured.

So in the interest of speeding up the baby's delivery AND getting my body back, I am seeking out different homeopathic methods to get labor started and make myself feel better. And now that I'm off bed-rest, I can do more active things than before. Here is the list of new and improved aids:

1. walking, walking, walking - and climbing stairs (but no heavy lifting)

2. back to yoga and stretching exercises

3. taking Evening Primrose Oil (to thin my cervix)

4. drinking raspberry leaf tea to tone my uterine muscles, more nettle tea to increase circulation, and lots and lots of water

5. rocking positions to get the baby to turn with its back toward my stomach and its face toward my spine (prevents painful back labor and gives me relief from backache)

6. Jasmine rice in a brand-new tube sock, heated in the microwave for 2 minutes = aromatherapy + heat pad = neck and back relief