Bedrest. The one word I had dreaded my entire pregnancy.

Bedrest. The one word my doctor had deemed it necessary to throw at me during my appointment the morning before when he'd told me, "Mrs. Mclean (hadn't I asked him to call me Jessica?), you've still got six weeks til your due date, you're 3 centimeters dilated, and you're blood pressure is elevated. I want you on immediate bedrest." I'd had to turn my head away from Aj's penetrating eyes. Damn him for knowing everything all the time.

Bedrest.

The definition of 'bedrest', as I'd tried to explain a million and one times to my dear pain in the ass of a husband over the last 24 hours, was a huge gray area. Undefined really. It did mean resting in bed of course, but was there really a set amount of time that I had to rest there? I mean five minutes every hour or so seemed plenty enough to me. After all I had baby clothes to wash and a nursery to finish and a stroller and bouncy seat and pack n' play to put together. I had diapers to arrange, teeny tiny socks to sort... the list went on and on and those things weren't getting done so long as I was restricted to my stinking bed.

Nope. There was absolutely no time for 'bedrest'.

Aj disagreed. In his mind bedrest meant keeping my butt in bed all day long, every single day until the moment our child decided to pop on out and enjoy this great wide world we lived in. And, as he'd explained, "that moment had better be damn close to 6 weeks from now," when 'said baby' is actually scheduled to arrive... or of course he would scold me for not properly following the baking instructions as if our child were a box of brownies and I was the oven.

"The only thing you're allowed to get out of bed for," he'd told me at 3:30 that morning as he'd hauled my whale-sized butt out of the kitchen where I was busy making myself a scrumptious and much craved for grilled cheese sandwhich and back to my king-sized bed (now prison), "is to pee!" And he'd deposited me there, covered me with far too many blankets and proceeded to haul his own far too skinny butt out to the couch in the living room... "because," as he'd informed me repeatedly for the past five nights, "it feels like an ice box in this damned bedroom!"

Was it my fault I was carrying 27 extra pounds of 'baby Aj' in my stomach? Was it my fault that 'baby Aj' made me feel like I was living in a freaking hot box?

No?

Well I didn't think so either!

What I did think, or rather, what I knew, was that I had far too much to do to be laying around in bed, listening to the radio when there were things to be done. I missed my job -- the exciting, on-the-go atmosphere of the pediatrics unit was calling my name. I missed my co-workers, my fellow nurses, my best friends, my patients. I really missed my patients. I didn't want to spend six weeks in bed... heck I didn't even want to spend a single day there. But I knew in my heart I had to do what was best for my baby and so I forced myself to remain there in the quiet solitude and boredom of my bedroom. I didn't have to be happy about it though.

I pulled the shade back from the window beside my bed and watched as Aj's car pulled into the driveway and he clambored out of the driver's seat and pulled a few large boxes from the trunk. It was the new crib and the rocking chair for the nursery. I'd begged repeatedly to go with him to pick them up, even if it meant just sitting in the car while her ran into the store to pay for the items... but he wasn't budging in his stance. I was to stay at home in bed and not lift a finger or move a muscle. I longed to walk up the stairs and set things up in the new master bedroom (the biggest guest room that was convieniently located next to the nursery) and do some prep work on the bathrooms. I longed to go into the nursery and hang up some of the clothes and help set up the room the way I wanted it.

But the answer was no. Always no. I was to stay in bed until the doctor told me otherwise.

"Baby?" I heard his voice as he came into the house, the clatter of his keys hitting the kitchen table. I was surprised he even called for me instead of sneaking around trying to find me up to something I wasn't supposed to be doing. He loved catching me out of bed... just so he could scold me for it.

"In here dummy!" I hollered smiling as he walked in the door and rolled his eyes, "where the hell else would I be, your masterness?"

He laughed. I'm sure the sight of me, laying there in nothing put my oversized pregnancy underwear and my ugly, but comfortable bra, was pretty funny, but I shot him a look that dared him to laugh again. He walked over and crawled into the bed beside me, wrapping his arms around me and gently kissing my swollen belly.

"I'm up here hon." I joked as I pulled his lips up to meet mine and he laughed, "you don't have to give the baby all the attention until he or she arrives."

He laughed again and sighed... "He or she... I can't wait to meet this little one and find out what it's going to be."

I reached up gently and kissed him, "Me either. I'm getting so excited just wondering what the baby's going to look like and whose personality it will have."

"I just hate calling our baby 'it'," He chuckled as he kissed my tummy gingerly, "thought anymore about names Jess?"

"Well..." We'd pretty much already decided, Madeline Olivia for a girl and Liam James for a boy. Our choices had changed a few times over the past few months but we'd settled squarely on the idea that our daughter would be named Madeline after my grandmother and our son would at have the middle name James after Aj, we'd gone back and forth on a middle name for a girl and a first name for a boy, but Olivia and Liam were our recent favorites. "I still like the names we picked Aje."

"Good," he answered still focusing intently on my tummy where the baby was now kicking nearly nonstop. It was painful and funny... painfully funny to sit there and watch as my stomach moved around in rhythm to his tiny kicks and punchs.

"I still want to wait until I see the baby though okay?"

He smiled and nodded, "sounds good to me."

"6 weeks Aj," I said pulling his head up to mine and kissing him eagerly.

"I can't wait."

"I can't either," I grinned, "but in the meantime..."

I pulled him down onto the bed and that's where we ended up, lost in one another's arms... in bed... resting.

Bedrest.

Now this was something I could deal with.