zzz grr

Snowy Owl, a photo by Dee Beale on Flickr.

I have officially had it with not being able to sleep. Is this just going to get worse between now and January, when I fear the baby will take after its mother and I will get no sleep at all?

I was not a good baby and cried literally all night every night, to the point where my mum and I were hospitalised. The nurses told my mum to go to sleep and said they would look after me, obviously believing they had the magic touch that my mum apparently lacked. Halfway through the night my mum was woken by an irate doctor who threw me across the room (a crucial fact often mentioned by my mother, who claims she wouldn't have stood for that nowadays) who said I was the worst baby he had ever seen. After that my mum and dad started taking it in turns to sleep in a tent in the garden with my sister so they could escape me.

So I think I was mentally prepared for not being able to sleep once the baby arrived. I was also mentally prepared for not being able to sleep when I was 7-8 months pregnant and the size of a small bungalow. But not to sleep from practically the moment you conceive?! Nobody told me about this!

I was actually having a great sleep tonight (aside from the disturbing dreams and sore hips and back that seem to accompany every pregnant night in bed) until Graham shook me awake at 2am to inform me that I was breathing too loudly. Graham is traditionally the poor sleeper in our relationship and has often woken me like this in the past, which never used to be a problem. Now, though, I can't easily find a different position to lie in because of the sore hip situation and once I am awake... Well, I am awake. Much to the cats' delight (they love any sort of night-time novelty) I have spent the last two hours huddled under a blanket on the sofa, but to no avail. To add insult to injury, I can hear Graham snoring from the bedroom, probably ten times more loudly than the original breathing crime I was accused of. And there is nothing like being awake when you shouldn't be, alone and tired and puky (because bad sleeps lead to the return of baby-induced nausea just when you think you have seen the back of it at last) to make you start doubting your ability to do any of this stuff.