Sleepless Nights

Lynae N.

November 16, 2009 - 5:43 AM

Some of you may remember my husband Brian and I want to get pregnant and I have immersed myself into baby land as a result. I am guilty of taking every spare minute I can find at my internships between clients and perusing the internet for all of the information I can find on pregnancy. Since there is no short supply of information, I am able to disappear into baby land at any time.

And this information is useful. I have been able to make important changes to my routine in anticipation to help promote a strong and healthy start for my baby whenever he or she becomes alive inside of me. I've changed my work out routine to a lower intensity cardio, high heart rates for mom doesn't allow as much oxygen to reach the baby and increased temperatures can cause birth defects when the baby's organs are developing. I've started taking a prenatal vitamin and have changed my food choices. No more delicious soft cheeses or "testing" the cookie dough and the small sporadic amount of caffeine intake I was having has stopped completely.

I've become obsessed with scanning my body for the early signs of pregnancy. This is where the sleepless nights come in. There is so much power in faith and in the mind's ability to create. Somehow the combination of these two mixed with a stronger sensitivity to anything going on with my body has made me go a little crazy. Every small headache (perhaps caused by the lack of sleep) could be a sign of pregnancy, every little change in my mood, being tired, sensation in my abdomen, etc. looks like pregnancy. I wake up every morning excited, feeling myself out to see if I can tell if I am pregnant yet or not. This preoccupation is causing me to wake up at all hours of the night and I'm finding that I am certainly not getting a full night's sleep right now. This is why I am up at 5:00 writing my blogs.I've been up three times this past night and after waking up at 4:00 I realized I was going to be up for awhile so I may as well write blogs.

I find nothing wrong with my excitement but I am perplexed over the irony of my anticipation. I am waiting for signs and symptoms and am hungry for any piece of information I can get about changing my lifestyle to accommodate a baby, but in doing so my mind is creating the symptoms I am waiting for. So I start to question their validity and instead of waiting to know, I am creating a so-far baby-less pregnancy.

I am not sure how to stop thinking about this so much but I know as the term comes to a close that sleep is more and more important as is mental clarity. I am going to have to put baby land on hold until I can complete my coursework for the term and then I will once again be free to dive into my imagination and expectations. I am bursting with excitement and will work hard at containing myself for the time being until I am more free to explore this possibility. I am sure I will buy a book or two or three on pregnancy and baby development to enjoy over Christmas break.