Guest Blog: Tales from the Bed by Dina

Answers to common questions:

How are you?:

I am essentially a prisoner in my home, but I'm allowed to eat whatever is in the fridge (right now, there are Costco chimichangas and french bread pizza). Kind of like bubble boy (or girl, I guess), except I can't run around outside in a smaller bubble built to my proportion that still serves as protection from all the harms of the world. Oh, and my first kiss wasn't plastic, poor John Travolta.What do you do all day?:

I'd like to say that I've read every single parenting book needed, or every classic (including Dickens), or even watched all the DVDs in my Sex and the City collection (like me, that DVD collection is still wrapped in plastic). Instead, please meet my new best friend:
This, my friends, is the Nintendo DS Lite. And if I were you, I would keep these very very far away from my children, especially adolescent boys who will ruin their minds and never get into college (and certainly not the number one university in the country) as addiction is certain and my only excuse is that I'm 34 and already got into and went to college. Of course, I might have gotten into college but I will likely be a horrificly unprepared parent since I can't manage to pick up anything remotely looking like a parenting book because my hands are occupied with the Nintendo.

How much longer do you have to stay on bedrest?:

Your guess is good as mine. But in a couple of weeks (when I will have officially been on bedrest for 5 weeks), I'll email you for your signataure to my electronic petition for Dina's freedom.

How is Joe handling all of this?:

Who the hell cares? Joe gets to wake up every day and leave the house!

(Ok, I should be a little more generous. Joe is taking it like a champ. Mostly because I think guilt overpowers him, as he's watching his pregnant wife (yes, folks, we all know that Joe did this to me -- not put me on bedrest, but you know, got me pregnant!!!) lay on her side for 23 hours a day. But we all know Joe's a good guy. Of course he's taking it like a champ!).

How are you feeling feeling?: (translation, are you emotionally stable?)

Generally, I'm taking it like a champ, too. As far as pregnancies go, I've had a great one. As far as blips on the pregnancy screens, this one has turned out not to be major (just a major inconvenience). And really, as long as the baby is healthy, that's all I really care about.

Ok, let's step away from the party line for a second (of course the priority is the health of the baby, what do you think, we're sick-os?). But let's take a Type A personality who 1) has a baby on the way; 2) is moving into a new house; 3) is overseeing the renovation of that house; and 4) requires near-daily exercise for her sanity's sake, and put that Type A on bedrest. I would, in my most PC way, just like to say that while I've been shockingly optimistic and positive about all of this, I've been damned salty, too.

What gets me is when I talk to people, most people ask "how is the baby?" Peeps. The baby is fine. As long as the baby is in the belly, the baby is fine. But how about asking me how I'm doing? Really, people aren't actually that interested in how I'm doing. I'm really just a pod. Just the outward shell that will be peeled away at some point to reveal a miraculous beautiful baby boy. And I will be there, still a shell, but this time, a fat saggy shell with engorged breasts and grown-out highlights.

But as long as the baby's healthy!!!