Sidelines National Support Network  / Volunteer Spotlight  / October_Volunteer

"I'm an active person, so bedrest was a terrifying concept. I didn't read the books I planned to read, do the puzzles I thought I'd do. I sat in that bed and I worried about my baby, all the time."

Nancy Liedel focused on "every little pain and symptom" while she was on bedrest with her fourth son, Herne, almost five years ago. E-mails from her Sidelines volunteer helped her to know that she wasn’t alone.

Her experiences as a bedresting mom-to-be led her to become a Sidelines volunteer so that she could help other women dealing with complicated pregnancies.

Nancy lost her first son, Ben, due to prematurity. Unaware that she had an incompetent cervix, Nancy went into labor with Ben at 24 weeks, and he lived only six short hours.

"We adopted two gorgeous boys (Gene-Gene and Steven) and were happy," Nancy said. "Finding out I was pregnant with Herne was a shock. I panicked at my doctor’s office. She gave me the url for Sidelines."

Nancy's first doctor chalked up the loss of Ben to "one of those things." When her family moved to Michigan, she started going to a new obstetrician/gynecologist who was "amazing." During her’s pregnancy with Herne, the doctor monitored her closely, and at 22 weeks, she discovered that Nancy's cervix had shortened dramatically. She put in a cerclage and ordered Nancy to bedrest.

At 28 weeks, Nancy went into full labor. Rushed to the hospital, Nancy was administered "every drug to stop labor known to man." A week later, Herne came into the world—all three pounds of him.

"Months in the NICU were followed by weeks of sleepless nights as I watched his monitor blink, worried about O2 levels, and gave my child caffeine," Nancy said. "We were thrilled to have Herne, but we were done with pregnancy. Or so we thought."

Seven months later, the day after she stopped breastfeeding, Nancy became pregnant again.

"This time I was in a blind panic," she said. "Forty years old, I didn't have the strength to go through another high-risk pregnancy, but we had little choice.

At 24 weeks, Nancy went into the hospital in labor. Another series of labor-slowing drugs were administered, and she was placed on hospital bedrest for the next eight weeks. Surrounded by doctors and nurses, it was a frightening place for her, she remembers.

"Friends and family rarely visited, if at all," she said. "I was told several times, by the people in my life, that they didn't like hospitals. My best advice to people who do not like to visit others in hospitals is to build a bridge and get over it. No one likes hospitals."

Her Sidelines volunteer's "calm voice and cheerful e-mails" made all the difference for Nancy. When JJ arrived at 33 weeks, his stay in the NICU was much shorter. He came home without a monitor, O2 or nurses’ visits, Nancy said.

Looking back, Nancy said that she "hated every second of her high-risk pregnancy." She remembers being terrified of even going to the bathroom, which she was allowed to do, for fear of going into labor.

"I was a grumpy pregnant woman. I felt robbed," she recalled. "All my friends had lovely pregnancies with big fat babies. Then, there was me. The woman who could not do it right. This thing that bonded so many women was a thing I could not accomplish without thousands of dollars and modern medicine. I blamed myself."

As a volunteer, Nancy helped another mom deal with the loss of her newborn son, sharing her own experience and choices and reassuring her that it wasn't her fault—something that Nancy herself needed to hear.

"Talking to her, and using the words I wish someone had shared with me, was soul-healing," she said. "I didn"t expect that."

She reassures her referrals that they are doing everything they can for themselves and their babies.

"You cannot control this pregnancy," she tells them. "If you could, you would not be on bedrest. Go easy on yourself. You are not to blame and you are not being judged. Accept offers of help—meals, housecleaning anything anyone is kind enough to give you."

She urges them to "enjoy the moment" as much as possible. She laments that she stopped talking to Herne in the womb; afraid to love because of the possibility of losing again, she said that she "turned part of my heart off."

"Tell those around you that you do not wish to be told how wonderful it is that you will have time to rest before the baby comes," she said. "Bedrest is not a nice nappy-time to refresh yourself. It's work, scary work. People who come in all cheerful and talking about how wonderful it is that you get to relax should have their lips duct-taped together. It's not a vacation. It's some of the most important work you will ever do. It"s absolutely worth it."

"I know it's hard to keep your eye on the prize," she continued. "Every time someone said, 'but you’re doing this for your baby,' I wanted to scream, 'I didn’t think I was doing it for a gerbil, lady.' Feel free to tell people that. Make it a joke. If you can't do that, then have someone else share that with the people around you. You should be supported, not feel that you have to justify a vacation."

"Play board games with anyone who will sit down with them, and get an Internet connection and a laptop, if you can," she said. "Crochet—I made the world's ugliest baby blanket. I treasure it, 'cause I put all my hopes into that little blanket. Watch bad television. Mostly, give yourself a break."

The hardest part for Nancy was feeling like she was no longer able to parent her older boys, especially Herne, who was only a year old. Her husband helped with that, bringing projects they could do together with the children at the hospital. She also took naps with Herne in the bed.

"Bedrest takes away your control over your own life," she said. "Doing little things, like spending special time with your family, will keep you sane."

A romance author who has also written several pieces for the Chicken Soup books, Nancy blogs about raising her children at blog.liedel.org. She added that she feels as if she is telling only part of her Sidelines story if she doesn’t share that Herne was diagnosed with autism a year ago.

"Even now, even on the days that I want to rip my hair out, bedrest with Herne and every moment in the NICU was more than worth it," she said. "He has some challenges, but they never overshadow what a precious gift he has been in our lives. I would do it all again, just the same way. Even with the magnesium. I’m glad I fought this fight."