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Insomnia is back.
I’ve always struggled with insomnia – I remember being a little kid and crying at night because I was so tired and just couldn’t sleep. I would lay awake until one thirty in the morning, trying to keep myself occupied by remembering every song I knew, mentally going through every second of the Lion King starting from the opening credits, reciting poetry in my head…
That disappeared with pregnancy. I was going to sleep BEFORE Perfect Husband, at ten o clock at night or sometimes even earlier, and he was all like “Who are you, and what have you done with my wife??”
But it’s back now.
It’s becoming less comfortable to sleep. It’s not a blatant discomfort – I’m not in pain or anything – but I notice it. It’s harder to breath, and harder just to get settled. My belly only feels heavy when I’m lying down. It seems to affect the pull of gravity on my body, and I am beginning to feel like the world’s worst constructed Weeble. I toss and I turn, trying to get comfy, constantly being pulled face down by the weight in my midsection. The pregnancy doesn’t feel uncomfortable – when people ask if I’m getting uncomfortable I say “no, not at all” because except when I try and bend at the waist, I feel pretty normal. But sleeping just isn’t happening.
And when I do nod off I’m having crazy dreams. Last night, in between restless awakenings, I went for pizza with friends but we had difficulty in paying the bill, then I had one of my other friends sleep over like when we were kids and I took the fetus out to show him to her but he looked like a baby sea turtle. Then I went to stay with some crazy Jenny McCarthy type man who wrote a whole book about how your child isn’t developmentally delayed (except he used the word “tard” in his book) – you’re just not trying hard enough. He had a large family one of which was clearly a developmentally delayed young man whom he put tremendous amounts of pressure on to memorize things that he didn’t really understand, so he could show off for the video cameras how “cured” he was. I began to raise objections, and developed a friendship with the developmentally delayed son, and the guy decided to murder me. So I contacted Perfect Husband secretly and snuck out of the house, cleverly meeting him at a brothel disguised as one of the workers (clearly I was not pregnant in this dream). He was all bemused because he didn’t know what was going on, but was clearly like “if Carol wants to dress up like a prostitute and meet me at a brothel, I’ll play that game…” When I got him into a room alone, I was about to explain about the crazy man and his wanting to kill me when crazy man burst in, all “AHA!” and we spent the rest of my tossy-turny night trying to escape from the guy.
I feel like I got no sleep at all, but I’m avoiding sleeping in because that can only make things worse.
At least I got a prenatal massage today. Maybe it’ll relax me into sleepy blissfulness tonight. My massage therapist, by the way, was fascinated by the concept of a diaper service which apparently she had never heard of before, and thought it was the most amazing idea ever.
If By Yes 
I find sleep difficult when I’m pregnant. Even though I’m tired all the time now, and I often can’t keep my eyes open past 9:30, my eyes will open at 4 or 4:30 in the morning, and I can’t get back to sleep. It always made me a bit annoyed while I was in my third trimester with Violet and people would say “get your sleep now, because you won’t be sleeping when the baby gets here!” and I would think to myself, I can’t sleep now! If it wasn’t Violet doing calesthenics right when I was trying to get to sleep, it was having to get up to pee every couple of hours, or my hips would get sore from not being able to give them a rest by sleeping on my back or my front. I remember we folded up a sleeping bag and put under my sheet on my side of the bed, just to make it softer for me. I’ve heard that this is your body’s way of preparing you for sleeplessness once the baby’s there, so it’s not such a shock to your system to suddenly be going without sleep.
It annoys me when people say that, too. You can’t stock up on sleep.
I also couldn’t sleep in either the first or third trimesters. I had a body pillow and found that helped enormously – I could lie sort of on my side, with the pillow between my knees and under my belly. It helped me feel more supported and I did get slightly better sleep.
The weird dreams though – I’ve got nothing to suggest. Just comes with the territory, I’m afraid. 🙂
Yeah, that’s one of the cruelest jokes of nature: the crappy sleep in late pregnancy. Maybe we should change that old adage to “Get as much LEISURE as you can before the baby gets here.” You know, like those long baths you like, or just sitting and reading a book for extended periods of time. (Yes, you’ll have time to read while baby nurses, but holding books can be a real challenge while nursing, especially in the beginning when you need two hands. This is why my laptop is my best friend right now.)