Sleep Deprived

One of my greatest thrills in life has always been to enjoy waking up at a leisurely, relaxing pace. No schedules to keep and no pesky alarm clocks. Three day weekends are something I really live for, especially since I've been a working adult. The work week seems so much easier when I have my Monday to myself.

Being pregnant however, removes all thrills of waking up in any way that is relaxing. The pesky alarm clock is replaced by my stupid bladder saying yo, get up and go pee again. I try to ignore it so I can just sleep for once, but no, it will not be silenced. At the beginning of pregnancy, I got up once in the middle of the night. Annoying, but something I could live with. At this point, there is literally no space left in my torso for my bladder to fill up. I have to be getting up 3 times in the middle of the night. The fourth time I get up is usually around 8:00 and I just can't seem to fall asleep after that because it is daylight. What a rotten deal! I'd like to be able to say to myself, "It's ok, only 7 more weeks of this." However, there is no point in that because I will just be getting up with a baby. It makes me wonder if God rigged the woman's body this way on purpose. That way, feeding a baby every 3 hours is not so shocking. I would imagine that if, while pregnant, I got the most amazing nights of sleep ever and then had to transition to waking every 3 hours, I would have the worst case of post partem ever. God is so much smarter than my desires, as usual.

I do hope that one aspect of pregnancy sleep will be gone in 7 weeks though, and that is the misery of being uncomfortable ALL the stinking time. I don't think I have felt comfortable at night since 16 weeks. Thankfully at 20 weeks, Michael bought me the greatest of all baby momma presents, a pregnancy body pillow. This has been a life saver on multiple occasions and bought me some time with several good nights of sleep. I won't sleep without it. Unfortunately, though, at this point, my body just hurts no matter what. Each time I get up, I feel like my entire torso down to my feet is completely locked up stiff. I don't know if this is normal or not, but everything feels completely tight like cement. (This comparison does not make sense to Michael.) I'm sure if I could figure out how to do stretches before and after sleep, it would get better, but how do you stretch with a bowling ball attached to you? Advice is welcome at this point.

I'm absolutely miserable and exhausted. I would honestly like to be attached to one of those medieval torture devices that stretches you out. Might feel like heaven the first few minutes. Also, I'm so ready to not have to stick to sleeping on my side. For those of you who don't know, you can't sleep on your stomach because the bump is in the way. Stinks. You can't sleep on your back or it feels like the baby is squishing your entire set of abdominal cavity organs causing slow suffocation. Also stinks.

I just wanna be able to sleep normally again.... Whatever the new normal is going to be....