lack of sleep, pain, etc.

[mamajoan]

For some reason I didn't go to bed until 2am last night (this morning). This is Not Good. Normally (by which I mean "when I'm not pregnant") I stay up till 1am at the latest, but for the last few months I've been making a real effort to get to bed by midnight. And this was the first time I've stayed up that late on a weeknight in a long time. It's especially bad since sleeping is so hard for me lately.

I sleep fine once I get to sleep, at first. But then generally I wake up sometime between 5 and 7 AM and my hip really hurts. Generally it's my left hip since I'm sleeping on my left side. So I turn over onto my back, but that isn't good because you're not supposed to lie on your back because it compresses an important artery. So I turn onto my right side, but then my left hip continues to hurt, and then my right hip starts to hurt too. And then I have to pee. So overall it's nearly impossible to get back to sleep.

Since I got pregnant my mom has told me about a thousand times how, for the last month or two of her pregnancy with me, she had to sleep in a chair sitting up because lying down was too uncomfortable. So this morning, when I woke up around 7am, I went to pee and then dragged a chair into the bedroom and put it next to the bed and sat in it, draping some blankets over me. And I was able to at least doze for a while like that, until my hips felt better. Then I got back into bed for (what was supposed to be) the last half-hour or so before I got up. Of course the half-hour turned into more like an hour, but eh, whatever. At least my hips weren't screaming in pain.

I'm pondering starting out in the chair tonight. Just to see how it goes. It's a butterfly chair and I find it pretty easy on my back and hips, especially when combined with a footrest of some sort.

So pretty soon I may be moving to a chair to sleep, possibly for the duration of my pregnancy. This is sad because I love my waterbed, but nice because it means the end is nigh. So to speak. ;) But I digress, my point having been: I got to bed way late last night so now I'm very tired. Woe.

It's been pretty much decided that I'll go stay with my mom for at least a few days, maybe even a couple of weeks, after the baby comes. This will just be easier in so many ways than her coming to stay with me at my place. I'll have to find someone to feed Bini and take in my mail and so forth, but that shouldn't be too difficult. Figuring out what to do with my car might be more "interesting," but we'll deal with that when the time gets closer. The hardest part about staying with mom will probably be having to use her sucky dialup connection to tell y'all about baby's every action! I'm so going to miss my cable modem! Snif. ;)

My belly-button is poking out a little more every day. Maybe by the time I actually go into labor it'll be all the way out. LOL! :)

Comments

[anotherjen.livejournal.com]

I had the same hip pain issue while sleeping. I solved it this way: I wedged a pillow under me, in the space between the hip I was lying on and my belly, which took the pressure off the hip. It worked wonderfully. I never had to resort to sleeping in a chair. Give it a try.

[mamajoan.livejournal.com]

Well, I already sleep with a body pillow on each side of me, and I usually curl up to the one in front with its bottom part between my legs, while the other one is behind me supporting my back. But if there's any much pressure on my belly, the baby starts wiggling like crazy and keeps me awake!

[anotherjen.livejournal.com]

In my method, there's no pressure on your belly. It's just gently resting on the bed. The weight is on the -front- of your hip, rather than the side. When you come over next, I'll demonstrate.