Monday, August 8, 2011

Who Needs Sleep (Well, You're Never Gonna Get It)

Sleep and I have a very major love/hate relationship. I would love to sleep, but it hates to let me. I used to have virtually zero trouble sleeping. I very rarely have ever had trouble falling asleep and very rarely woke up at night. There have been a few times when I had periods of nightmares that would jolt me out of a dead sleep (like when my Dad was in his car accident, when my Dad had his surgery, right after my Grandma Rogers passed away, etc), but in general, I've had a very good track record with sleep.

Cut to me getting pregnant with Lilly. My first few months of pregnancy, I had no trouble sleeping. I slept great at night and even took naps just about every day during my lunch break. Then, I got to the portion of pregnancy where it is hard to sleep. Around October or so, when I was about 5 months pregnant, I could no longer actually sleep in my bed (the baby would not get comfortable, no matter what side I laid on or how many pillows I had bunched around me). I was eventually talked into bringing the recliner in our room and sleeping somewhat propped up in there for the last 4 months or so. It was awful. I was up every few hours to pee or because I was uncomfortable or just to shift a bit.  No matter why I awoke, I would have trouble going back to bed. So, I'd sit up surfing the web or reading or simply listening to Lee sleeping. By the end, it was even worse. I was up more than I was asleep because I was so uncomfortably pregnant. I prayed I would pop so I could finally get some rest...haha...

Newborns bring on a whole new level of not sleeping...they are up every couple hours in the night. I knew this going in, but you never realize how tiring it is until you are actually involved in it. We were EXTREMELY fortunate that, for the most part, Bean started sleeping through the night (almost every night) starting when she was about 3 months old. For Lee, this meant many great nights of sleep. For me, it meant that I was back to my pregnant schedule of sleeping and waking up every few hours. If I was lucky, I would fall back asleep fairly quickly. If not, I was up for quite a while and would fall back asleep eventually. Regardless, I would be up again within a few hours MAX.

Fast-forward to the present.

Lilly will be 18 months next Wednesday and here I am, still sleeping like I’m pregnant.  I fall asleep a little bit easier, so that is nice, but I’m still up every hour or so…

Tossing…

And turning…

And pillow-fluffing…

And sighing…

Lee has been "concerned" about this for a while, so I caved and agreed to talk to the doctor about it during my check up.  Dr. Rose went over all the potential causes:

"What kind of medications are you on?"

"I take a multivitamin."

"Caffeine?"

"In the morning, if anything."

"Alcohol?"

"I think I had a sip of wine, maybe, at the 4th of July...before that, I think it was May."

"When do you exercise?"

"Generally, 5 a.m.  If I do it in the evening, I get all jacked up."

"How about your legs?  Any urge to move them?"

"Nope."

"Does Lee snore or anything that would interfere with your sleep?"
"No."

"Any pain?"

"Not really."

"Lilly still sleeping through the night?"

"Absolutely."

After all was said and done, I'm told I have Primary Insomnia.  What does that mean?  There isn't really a reason for my being unable to sleep...I just can't sleep...  She gave me some ideas on how to, I guess, cope with it.  She told me I could try melatonin...sometimes it helps...sometimes it doesn't.  She also asked me if I wanted a prescription for something.  I was very hesitant, but she said it wouldn't hurt to have on hand for if I REALLY need to sleep.

I am now the proud owner of a bottle of Ambien.

If you know me, you should know that I don't like taking medication when I don't have to.  I don't even like taking Ibuprofen unless I absolutely have to (I can thank my many sprains/breaks in high school for upping my tolerance to a point where taking 8 would do nothing for me...).  I find it somewhat embarrassing that I have to take something to get me through a night, to actually get some sleep.

I thought losing all this weight and exercising and being all healthy and junk would solve my problems, but I guess it doesn't fix everything, eh?

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