by Leslie Contreras Schwartz for the Huffington Post

I am entering my sixth week of bed rest at 30 weeks pregnant, and I am often surprised by the reaction I get from the people I tell.

"Oh, you poor thing!" a woman might say. "I was on bed rest for two days and I wanted to go crazy."

The reason why bed rest is so difficult for mothers now is that were are skilled multi-taskers and do-ers; always busy, constantly working by engaging in the things that moms do. Even if we don't work, there are countless chores and errands required of us to keep the house running at a healthy speed -- or so we think.

But bed rest requires you to stop working, at least physically, and makes you confront the sometimes uncomfortable act of doing nothing. To let thoughts come and go, and reflect on them, something that we hardly give ourselves the space to do in our normal daily lives.

By doing nothing, I don't mean binge-watching television shows, or performing various "bed rest" activities like magazine reading or scrapbooking as suggested by many well-meaning sites about how to deal with bed rest boredom. What I mean is that you enter that space where you allow your mind to float and process, which may amount to you looking as if you are staring at a wall and doing, well, nothing.

Read the full article here.