By the end of January, my doctor had put me on medical leave and I was pretty much under house arrest. This is standard for triplet pregnancies -- some women end up on bedrest from as early as 8 or 9 weeks. We found out we were having 2 girls and 1 boy and were ecstatic to be getting at least one of each. I busied myself with planning the nursery and growing babies. Before I went on bedrest, I had all sorts of plans for the time. I was going to read books, write long letters, create scrapbooks. Ha! I read exactly 20 pages of Toni Morrison's "Song of Solomon". For the most part, I ate, slept, and looked at TV. I felt truly brain dead. I didn't want to do anything more challenging than reading the paper.

I grew and I grew...and grew. At 20 weeks my doctor ordered home monitoring for me. Twice a day I strapped on a belt that was attached to a machine, which detected uterine contractions. If I had more than 4 or 5 contractions, a nurse would call to find out why. Usually I had to drink some water or milk (hydration helps to prevent or reduce contractions), and in the latter stages of the pregnancy, take medication. Then I would re-monitor and hope the contractions would decrease. Usually they did. To help mark the time, I taped a special calendar to my bathroom door, the Olen Pregnancy Calendar