I’ve tried not to complain too much during my pregnancy, partly because I’ve been very lucky and have little to complain about, but also because I’ve gotten a good dose of perspective and because I feel like certain things are to be expected when you are pregnant, so why complain? (This is of course just my perspective, and I generally don’t judge other pregnant women when they complain about their aches and pains).

Within the past few weeks, the peanut has definitely grown. I had heard other women say the last trimester was to make you so uncomfortable you’d do anything to get the baby out, and although I haven’t even come close to that feeling (yet?), I’m getting more of a taste of what they mean.

To wit, the past two nights have been a revelation in sleep position for me. With the surgery and the normal constraints of pregnancy sleep positions (can’t sleep on your back or stomach, left side is better to lay on because of a vein-thingy or something), I was limited to sleeping on my left side only. Thank GOODNESS the side of my surgery and the side I could sleep on during pregnancy matched, otherwise I truly don’t know what I would have done. Slept sitting up?

Anyway, left-side-only sleeping was causing some hip/glute pain & soreness, probably from my body desperately trying to keep my growing ballast-y stomach righted. I was getting maybe 2-4 hours of sleep at a time, which is great practice for a newborn, but less good for my goal of “resting.” No matter the complicated pillow arrangements (and right after the surgery, I required no less than 6 pillows in various places), I couldn’t ease that hip soreness.

But two nights ago, my body figured something out for itself in my sleep! You really don’t care about the specifics, but I’ll just say that now I only need 2 pillows, plus whatever I use under my head, and I’ve slept 7 hours at a stretch! Huge progress! The result was not only no pain, but also a more active day than I’ve done in quite a while.

One problem with this new arrangement: while I am more comfortable, I am also laying a bit flatter. This appears to be messing with my subconscious fears, as both nights I’ve slept like this, I’ve had not-great dreams about birth, problems with the baby and feeling like she’s not moving. I wake up just to make sure I’m not laying flat, which can cut off blood/oxygen supply to the baby, and then go back to sleep.

So my choices appear to be: short bursts of sleep with some pain/discomfort or longer stretches of sleep with anxiety dreams.

Sounds like good preparation for motherhood!