No Rest for the Weary

I am huge – let's face it. I'm 37 weeks 3 days pregnant, and I'm supposed to be huge. But I am finding my size a bit startling nonetheless. None of my clothes fit properly anymore –not even the "just in case I get that big" maternity pieces I'd bought on sale. When I lie down, I can imagine it's exactly what a beached whale feels like – heavy and helpless. It's not a good feeling, my friends.

So what happens when I try to sleep is that I turn on one side and the enormous girth of my bump puts my hip to sleep and I wake up, moaning in pain. And then I turn to the other side, and it happens there too. And so it goes, back and forth, all night, until I usually give up and stand up – pausing to let the excruciating groin pain subside before I take a step – and take a break from all that exhausting "sleeping." Last night I took my break downstairs on the couch, because it was also about 200 degrees in my bedroom, and I was all sweaty on top of everything else and about to cry. I tossed and turned more on the couch and today am a rather useless zombie.

So it's making me a little bit insane that helpful people* keep telling me to "bank" my sleep now, as if I can go up to the teller and put 200 hours in savings, please, and then walk out with one of those sugary lollipops that you can only find at banks. When I hear this it makes me so tired I want to doze right on the spot (if I could). Because clearly they think that a) I'm sleeping like a baby all day and night right now, b) I'm so naive, I have no idea what I'm in for and newsflash! Babies wake up all through the night, am I sure I know this? Because if I didn't know this, then how sad for me when I'm up in the middle of the night all tired with a crying baby and don't say they didn't warn me. And c) they obviously think that I have no idea what it's like to not sleep, that there's never been a reason for me to have a lack of sleep before. Because my life never had any meaning before this – I was just a selfish fool with nothing notable to do that might take up a lot of time. How sad. But how happy to be in for no sleep soon when I pop out this baby, so I, too, can warn other unsuspecting pregnant girls who aren't sleeping all about banking their sleep!

Maybe I'm just being sensitive – okay, I know I'm sensitive, because the other night I cried real tears when my husband said something to the cat when he was supposed to be listening to me – but I'm becoming more and more agitated when people tell me this. I would like to ask that they tell me how sleeping for a couple of hours at a time when I don't have a 7lb 6oz (ultrasound measurements this week, which I know are just an estimate) human being strapped in my middle will be any worse than what I'm doing now?


*(Please note: I promise that if you are my friend IRL and you are close enough to me to read this blog, I am not talking about you when I refer to comments I'm getting. From you I seriously want to know how it really will be, and I want to hear your thoughts because I know they come from a loving and helpful place, and you aren't just trying to scare me or demonstrate how little I know.)

Thank You, Baby

Okay, so a real-life friend and some blogger friends have talked me off the ledge a bit from my nursing-bra tirade. I now understand that the underwire thing, at least, is explainable medically and not just another plot by male product designers to drive us certifiably insane (like this one: those paper backings they put on panty liners that have no little raised edge or anything for you to pull to peel them off). It still doesn't explain why they fit so strangely or look so sorry, but I'm learning that this is not necessarily the place to invest my post-pregnancy dollars.

Meanwhile, I may be busting out of my existing bras like the Incredible Pregnant Hulk, but at least there was this today: an ultrasound confirming that the baby's head is now clearly low in my pelvis, ready to emerge at the designated time. Which means all that child's posing (have you ever seen a pregnant woman try to get in the knees-to-chest position? It's sort of, I would imagine, like watching an elephant sit down at a table for tea.) and playing of music low on my belly (mainly James Taylor; I wonder if I should let him know of this new use for his music) actually achieved its intended end. Or not – I completely accept that those techniques could be complete hogwash, that there was nothing I could have done and doing those things simply kept me from going insane. But no matter, because what we confirmed today also means that my c-section on 1/18 will be canceled in favor of the quaint-sounding plan of waiting to go into labor naturally.

I know I could have figured out a way to deal with the surgery, and I still will if I need to, if labor becomes complicated and the c-section becomes necessary as I know it sometimes does. But I was genuinely, intensely anxious about it, and I'm so relieved and grateful to turn my attention back to the excitement of welcoming this long-awaited baby. He's keeping us on our toes by doing things on his own time. But he's heading in the right direction now.