The Kama Sutra of Sleeping Pregnant

First I would like to say my husband is disconnecting our cable box right now. Sad. We decided to give it up to save some $$ and because honestly we use it was too much for mindless entertainment and miss spending hours of possible quality time together cause we are too zoned into the tube. Still I will miss you CABLE TV, DVR, and the trash I watch on you. (On to better days and purifying the mind. )

ANYWAY!!!!

If you have never been pregnant before you truly are missing out on the joy of SLEEPING AS A PREGGO LADY.

Every night around bed time I start to feel a sense of overwhelming dread. Cause I never know how the night will go. I don't even mind the Q3hr pee breaks (for you non-medical people that is every 3 hours) it is the beatings I fear. Occasionally I will get in a good night and will sleep like the dead (when I say occasionally I mean RARELY, but I am still thankful for them) Mostly I toss and turn and sleep okay with an occasional sharp word towards my husband or unborn daugther about how they are snoring/too close (to the husband) or about how its not nice to beat on mommy (to the daughter). The other night I may have Said to Dan "get her out" and "I don't like you right now" to the unborn daughter- now....that sounds AWFUL and I am kinda ashamed to admit I said that to my unborn daughter but after 3 hours of being awake I was DONE. So I played words with friends on my phone and free-cell till the sun came out and gave up sleeping entirely.

I have heard about how a baby that is laying head down will head-butt your bladder and kick away at your ribs and it can be super uncomfortable. However, let me explain what babies that are laying transverse do (see last post for a transverse picture) If you lay on your left side they nudge their little hard tennis ball head into your ribs cause I am sure they don't like the pressure on their heads. And if you lay on your Right side they kick away at your ribs on that side because...well who knows why but she does.

First- I got this pillow (the cute guy displaying it is mine too) Best 50 bucks I have ever spent. Boppy makes it and it has helped me sleep a lot better.

So here it is...my Kama Sutra of Sleeping Pregnant.

STOMACH LYING

Pretty soon after you get pregnant they tell you to stop laying on your stomach. That is how I prefer to sleep when not preggo. I pushed it and layed on my stomach until it was uncomfortable. But let me tell you IT STOPPED BEING COMFORTABLE A LONG TIME AGO.

BACK LYING

They also tell you about 18 weeks to stop laying on your back. Apparently the heaviness of your uterus/baby can pinch your descending aorta cutting off circulation to your lower body including your uterus and baby. I have to admit I often would wake up on my back and have no lower body numbness and so I wasn't too worried. So I continued sleeping on my back until last week. When I woke up and sure enough each of my little piggies was kinda numb. I decided I had pushed it an extra 10 weeks and I should stop intentionally laying on my back.

SIDE LYING WITH PREGNANCY PILLOW

This side lying is completely acceptable and can be done with or without the preggo pillow. It does help to have one between your legs though. I just find that the pillow helps a ton. However, since my SWEET baby girl is also laying sideways it means that if I lay on my side her head or feet are obtaining a lot of pressure. So in my case she beats me up all night by head butting or kicking my ribs depending on what side I lay on. ( I added the arrow for emphasis to show you WHERE she beats me)

BACK LYING WITH A PREGNANCY PILLOW

I know this picture kinda looks like I am laying on my side. However, my belly is actually off the bed. It is kinda a back/side position. If you use the pillow the "wrong way" you can still get the benefits of its head and leg support and then sick in an extra pillow to make it so you aren't flat on your back. If I took out that extra pillow I would mostly be on my back and risk more numbness/lack of blood flow which is a bad thing. This position works best (for me) because baby girl isn't getting so much pressure on her head/legs and while she still moves her movements are sweet and don't resemble a beating at all.

The downfall to this position is that it takes up a lot of room in the bed so my sweet hubby has to be squished. (I think it is nice of me to be worried about his bed space since honestly I am the one getting squished by the ever-growing human in my abdomen/pelvis/lungs.)

That's all I've got for now-

Love, La