Everyone knows that pregnant women don't sleep well. It all gets chalked up to the squashed bladder and the basketball strapped to the abdomen, but it's so much more than that.
First of all, for me, is the fact that I am a face-sleeper. I normally sleep flat on my stomach with my head under the pillow. Bryn thinks this is terribly weird and it worried him at first. Yes, I can breathe. No, the boobs don't get in the way. (But they will the entire time I'm nursing)
Now that there is a belly, I have to sleep either on one side or the other. Back sleeping is not an option. For those of you who don't know: sleeping on ones back while pregnant can pinch an artery and squishes lots of organs and, for whatever reason, makes it hard to breathe. And it's impossible to sit up from flat on your back. So, left or right are the only options.
Now, all health care professionals are going to tell a pregnant woman to sleep on her left side. That artery in her back is least compressed and the blood flow to the uterus is best if she lies on her left side. I slept on my left exclusively for the nine months I was pregnant with Alex. I can't do that any more.
Since I have to get up every couple of hours to pee anyway, I switch sides. I start on my left, but depending on how many times I get up in the night, I may finish the night on my right.
Not only does my hip get sore, my ear hurts. If you didn't know me as a child, you may not know quite how far my ears stick out. Lying on them hurts that cartilage that makes them stick out.
And if I'm not careful with how I position my arm, while lying on my left, the top one gets tingly and I lose the sensation in my fingers. I have an old shoulder injury that makes positioning my right arm crucial or it's uncomfortable for the rest of the day.
Then there's the heat thing. A pregnant woman's volume of blood is a lot greater than it was a year ago. I'm a freaking furnace. I remember being hot with Alex, but at least in March and April, I could just turn down the heat or open the window. I sleep with a fan pointed directly at me. (Since I can't take my allergy meds, this dries out the stuff in my nose and makes my nose hurt - so not directly related to sleep, but makes it harder for me to get a good stretch of it since I need to clear out my nose so I can breathe without drooling) I still sweat a lot, even with the fan. I get up to pee and the pillow needs to be flipped over because it is all cold and damp. The body pillow I put between my breasts also needs to be flipped, for the same reason.
The body pillow. It needs to go between my breasts or they are smooched against one another and they just pool sweat. It runs from between them and I get rashy. The pillow also has to go between my knees and ankles so my hips don't ache quite so badly. It also keeps me away from my husband... I don't like that part. However, considering how much heat I throw, he doesn't want to snuggle with me anyway, so it's not a really big deal. I guess.
And there's the peeing. I need to get up somewhere between every 45 minutes and 3 hours. I am grateful for the 3 hour stretches. Getting from horizontal to vertical takes a lot of energy and logistics. This leg has to go here before that leg can go there and this arm has to support the whole structure before you can lean that way. And then when you get to the bathroom, the trickle that is produced is so unsatisfying that you sit there longer than you need to and your legs fall asleep because you did too, accidentally. You know there has to be more pee - that tiny amount could not have been the urgency that got you out of bed. Seriously.
And then you have to climb back into bed and try to get comfortable all over again, except now your spot is all cold and damp from the sweat. But at least, by this point, you're exhausted and drop right off to sleep. Usually.
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