Liquids on Bed rest

On the way to Utah for James' funeral I started feeling a little 'off'. As the weekend progressed I started getting intense cramping and stabbing my lower abdomen. I called the on-call nurse and was told it was probably just stress and gass.  So I struggled through the weekend with little sleep and lots of pain.  By the time we got home Sunday night I was in agony.  My stomach had swollen (I looked 6 months pregnant) and was so tender I was having a hard time wearing clothing or having anything touch it. 

Monday morning I went to my OB/GYN to have everything checked out (no pregnant woman wants pain this bad in her abdomen).  The baby was fine, I again got to hear the wonderful little heart beat.  It turns out I had a viral infection of my large intestine.  The doctor described it as sores that got food in them, got infected and have now swelled and are painful.  He said they usually prescribe intense pain medication, rest and a liquid diet BUT because I am pregnant and cannot have the pain medication I was put on a liquid diet and bed rest for 'about a week' until it cleared up. 

Bed rest just sounds like a cop out to me.  Why? I am fine.  So feeling stupid just laying around, I would try to get up and get stuff done and be hit again with crippling pain.  So, in the end, I did end up staying down pretty much the entire time. 

The liquid diet was also pretty horrible because you feel like you are starving.  But the worst part was that, on only liquids, I was unable to quench my pregnant belly and morning sickness. With throwing up and the already limited liquid calories, I was dropping weight fast.  So I started drinking chocolate milk, peanut butter on a spoon and any high calorie (even if it was not healthy) food I could get. I felt pretty weak and had low energy (another good reason for bed rest) because all of my good calories were being quickly shuttled to our little one!

After a week I started feeling better so I introduced solid food and again began having the abdominal pains.  So, AGAIN, I went on a liquid diet and bed rest.  After a complete two weeks of this I am know eating solid foods (I am not eating anything really hard to digest yet like tough meats, leafy greens or popcorn).  Every once in a while, if I eat too much, I will get some mild pains but I am hoping this is the end of my stomach virus.  I am excited to begin the 'healthy feel good' portion of my pregnancy!

(The day after I started solid foods I got a raging head cold- sigh- maybe I will start the 'healthy feel good' portion of my pregnancy next week!)