It's All Relative

One of the nurses recently told me that the unit sometimes has prisoners as patients. The prisoners get a private room and are handcuffed to the bed. They each have their own personal guard rotation; the guard sits in the recliner next to the bed and usually monopolizes the TV. Fascinating. I'd made comparisons between the hospital food and prison food, so I asked the nurse: "What do the prisoners think of the food here?"

"They think it's fantastic," she said.

So it's possible I may have been exaggerating the food's awfulness. It's not good, but most of the time it is edible. Occasionally it is tasty (maybe one meal every two weeks). Still, when it's time to eat most of the entrees I often end up talking to myself, trying to psych myself up for the task.

Just eat it. It's not going to kill you.

How bad can it be? Take one bite.

You're 34 years old. You aren't a picky kid anymore. You can eat this. Be a grown up.

It could be much worse. What if you were in a Mexican prison? That would have to be worse.

You're lucky that you even have food in the first place.

The sooner you start to eat it, the sooner you'll be finished and won't have to deal with the food for a few hours.

Just hurry up and swallow it and wash it down with some milk...

The good news is I've managed to get my weight back up and have gained about 4 pounds overall since I checked in more than 7 weeks ago. The contractions have kind of calmed down for the most part, although they still rear their head from time to time. Friday we will be at 30 weeks gestation. If we can get to 34, Baby Girl and I should be golden.

I sometimes feel that we've had really bad luck, especially compared to all the women who sail through their normal pregnancies and end up with a healthy baby every time. My first two pregnancies seemed like worst-case scenarios, ending in the first trimester. But now I understand that some things are much worse than that.

In the past few months, two friends of mine have lost their babies in the second trimester, delivering them too early for the babies to survive more than a couple of hours. I can't imagine how devastating that must be.

I've complained about the food here, and I've complained in general about my "confinement," but we now have a good chance of having a healthy baby.

In that respect, we are very lucky.