The Never Ending Quest for 40 Winks

I'm tired. Not, "Goodness gracious, I should have gone to bed earlier last night!" More like, "I haven't had an uninterrupted night's sleep in so long that I would kill to see the back of my eyelids for more than an hour or two at a time."

Now, as a Mom, I'm pretty used to being tired. There are so many things I try to cram into a normal day that by the time I fall into bed at night, I sleep like the dead. Since the pregnancy, however, I've gotten used to the nightly "What-the-hell-why-is-this-kid-bouncing-on-my-bladder-at-3-AM-I-guess-I-better-get-up-and-go-to-the-bathroom" routine. Still, once a night wasn't bad since I still managed large chunks of time in which I was blissfully sleeping. I was still fairly coherent during the daylight hours when I needed to be able to function on all cylinders. (Ok, honestly, maybe 85% of my cylinders. Happy now?)

Since being stuck in the hospital though, those large chunks of happy, sleepy time have dwindled to about an hour at a time. Two if I'm lucky. And do you know why? Because hospitals are evil and they get their kicks from waking you up 18 times a night, that's why!

Okay, okay, that's not why. I totally get that they are just being conscientious and doing their job. I understand that they need to wake me up every four hours to check my temperature and that they can't help it that this falls at midnight and 4 AM when I'm trying my hardest to get my beauty rest. It's not their fault that I had woken up two hours earlier when I rolled my massive belly over, realized I had to pee and got up then too. I appreciate that these lovely nurses and PCAs are looking out for me and that I have to have vitals checked and my baby's heartbeat listened to. I just ask we do it while I'm awake. No, let me re-phrase that. I only ask that we do it between the hours of 7 AM and 10 PM.

As if that wasn't bad enough, you also have the doctors that make their rounds. The problem is that they like to do it between 5:30 and 6:15 in the morning. When normal people want to be in dreamland. I guess when you work overnight shifts, you forget that people like to be sleeping at 5:30 in the morning. Or at least this gal does. Now if you give me an hour, I'm already up because I've given up the pretense of trying to get any more shut eye and decided to call it quits for another night. This morning a lab tech came at 6:50 to draw blood. I think she was probably disappointed to see that I was already up.

You know how some people can get 4 or 5 hours of sleep a night and wake up and be annoying assholes with their "Life is awesome and I didn't even have to have caffeine to think that life is awesome and what do you mean you don't you want to have deep, meaningful conversations before you've had your coffee?" Yeah, I'm not one of those.  I'm more of the "I need at least 7 hours a night of quality shut eye followed by a large dose of caffeine and until those two things have happened your voice is going to sound like the teacher on the Peanuts cartoons and not make actual sense." type of person. Take one or both of those things away and you should probably fear for your life. (My husband is the first type. The man wakes up every day smiling and in the middle of a conversation. Usually I make scary, grunting noises so he goes away until I've had a cup of coffee. Or 12.)

So if you happen to see me in the next few days, please make sure that you don't mention the large dark circles under my eyes. Yes, I do realize that those bags are so big I could probably fit a week's worth of luggage for an entire family of five in there. Shut up. Remember, pregnant woman always glow and when we don't, LIE. It could save your life.