Cranky Phase

I think I’ve been pretty agreeable this far into the pregnancy—no more overly emotional than any other time at any rate. But in the past couple weeks this has started to change and I have been getting cranky and irritable. And there is a very clear culprit in this: lack of sleep, or more accurately lack of good sleep. I am getting enough hours of sleep but before last night I don’t think I had slept more than two hours consecutively in at least two weeks without being woken up by pain, and some nights it was more like every 30-45 minutes.

When I lay on my right side my hip hurts, when I lay on my left side my upper back hurts, lying on my back is against the rules because it limits blood flow to the baby, and lying on my stomach would be physically impossible even if the doctors would permit it. And so I start off on one side in minor pain and sleep until the pain is so bad it wakes me up, roll over and repeat. This means that not only do I never get into deep sleep but I spend the entire time I’m sleeping in some degree of pain. And all of this means I wake up achy and tired, leading to a day of crankiness and irritability.

Last night a miracle happened—I didn’t wake up for the first time until 3 ½ hours after we went to sleep! Unfortunately, the reason for this respite is that I had somehow ended up on my back. Well, those hours were glorious, but I of course then spent the next hour unable to sleep until Peanut had done sufficient gymnastics to assure me that everything was okay.

But today I feel wonderful! 3 ½ hours of real sleep and I am a new woman. And knowing that this was probably a one-night gift, I am determined to use this energy and optimism to make a huge dent in the chapter I started writing last night.