Saturday, July 27, 2013

Insomnia strikes again

I'm nearing the end. This whole cooking a child within your womb process is (thankfully) coming to a close. At 37 weeks I am considered full term and can safely have the baby at any moment. That's when it seems every side effect of pregnancy will rear its ugly head.

Swollen feet? Like sausages. I stare at them in disbelief, like they belong to someone else, an alien appendage that attached itself to my slender long legs. They actually jiggle when I walk, feeling like I am carrying bags of water on the tops of my feet. It's totally gross to me but for some reason my husband thinks its hilarious. He's lucky I don't ask him to rub them, he would change his mind real quick.

Bad Circulation? My hands are asleep right now as I try to type. My fingers tingle so badly it's painful and I must take a break every minute or so to shake out my hands so I can continue. It's more annoying than anything else and it only seems to happen at night, when I'm trying to sleep. Which brings me to Insomnia...

I am an insomnia professional. It doesn't even bother me anymore and I'm quite good at it after all these years. It began when I had my son three years ago and it is my nighttime bedmate daily. I consider an hour of insomnia a full nights sleep, while my regular seems to be somewhere between two to three hours of 'up time'. Studies say its a natural way for women to prepare themselves for childbirth and the sleepless nights of raising an infant. True, true. But what about when your child begins to sleep through the night and there you are, still awake while the snores of REM sleep have hit your husband and child over the head? 

Sometimes I just lay there and listen, thinking of my day, what I did, what needs to be done tomorrow. Sometimes I toss and turn, thinking that the ideal position will find me and sleep will immediately take over my body. Other times I just get up, knowing there is no rest coming for an hour or two so I might as well get some writing or editing done. I dabble on Facebook or Twitter, scroll through Instagram, catching up on my social media. I send emails or play with different photos I took that day in Snapseed. I stretch, look for raccoons or skunks that visit our backyard nightly, watching with delight when I do catch them passing through on the way to one of our fruit trees. 

And then, as the sun rises,  I waddle back to bed, sometimes getting a whole hour or two of solid sleep before the phone starts buzzing and its time for another day. 

It's that time now being 5:55am, and if I'm quick, I can get my active mind, my swollen feet and tingly fingers to settle down. Sleep is coming, so I'd better go. Wish me luck that I pop soon, I can handle losing my mind, I just really need my body back.

No comments:

Post a Comment