Mama PlaygroundA Blog for Moms

It’s official, I must wave good bye to sleeping soundly and comfortably. As I barely eeked a tiptoe in to the second trimester last night, my body was hung up on the technicality. Technically this is when things should start to get uncomfortable, but at the stroke of midnight at the turn of my second trimester? Really? Sigh.

I only vaguely remembered with the after-the-fact “oh yeah” moment in the middle of the night last night that even sleeping on your side can be uncomfortable! When thinking back on pregnancy I remembered that it is difficult to give up the many shades of gray for sleeping positions that fall between the two side sleeping positions, belly, and back sleeping. Belly sleeping goes first, of course. But it is followed quickly by back sleeping. This position is eliminated because the weight of the pregnancy (uterus, amniotic fluid, baby, placenta, extra blood supply, etc) presses on your vena cava. This results in dizziness, shortness of breath, and feeling lightheated. The threat of decreasing the blood supply to myself or the baby is enough to keep me from trying the back sleeping positions. I don’t actually wait for the adverse reaction.

But the two remaining positions: left side and right side are compromised to! Oh the torture! I actually did remember that at some point you need a support pillow (or four) to be tangled awkwardly between your knees and under your belly, etc when side laying. I had forgotten that actually limiting yourself to two sleeping positions completely pisses your hips off. Last night I felt like I was trying to decide between which bruise to put all of my body weight on. Lay on my left (as pregnant women are encourage to do to increase kidney functioning during sleep) and I was really pressing on my worst bruise. But switch to the right side, and it was still painful. I am only 1/3 of the way through this pregnancy! Whine, whine, I know. I will suck it up and deal with it, but this is only the beginning.

I had almost completely forgotten the part of the pregnancy where the belly is so large that turning from left to right actually requires putting both hands on my belly in the night to help facilitate the transfer of my whale self from right to left. My arms would help swing the momentum by lugging the belly, with my body soon to follow. This is not to mention the part of the pregnancy where the number of pillows required to properly cushion the various bulges and achy parts of my body during sleep far outnumbers the people in the bed. My poor husband. He retreated to a sliver of the bed on one side with frequent requests from me to make more room. Sigh. Hello second trimester. Nice to see you again.