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Pregnancy Insomnia

Third Trimester Blues

By Samantha ReidPublished 6 years ago 4 min read
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It is hard enough to sleep on the best of days. With stress and the chaos of life weighing on your mind, it can keep you up at night. Perhaps you've never been great with sleep. Perhaps your mind races or you can never get comfortable. But you have coffee in the morning and you move on with your life.

When you add pregnancy into the mix, sleep can become an almost impossible task. Early in the pregnancy, sickness may make you run from bed to the bathroom. Then add in the heartburn, the vivid dreams, and the growing weight of your baby and it makes sleep difficult.

In your third trimester, getting to sleep is nearly impossible. You can't sleep on your back. You can't sleep on your stomach. And when you sleep on your side your shoulders and hips ache. The weight of the belly makes life difficult and it makes it almost impossible to find a comfortable position.

People will always make suggestions to you. Someone will tell you to get a pregnancy pillow. And as glorious as that sounds as a concept, it's not the most practical thing when sleeping with a partner. Some pregnancy pillows take up more than half of the bed.

Some people will tell you to put a pillow between your knees, or under the belly. It's all about pillows. A hundred pillows is not enough according to some people. You need a sea of pillows and then you may be able to sleep.

Some people will tell you to sleep in a recliner. And as appealing as that sounds, not everyone owns a recliner. It's most people's dream to put something on the TV, lean back in a recliner, and take a nap. It sounds like the most luxurious thing. It's what every old man does in every family movie. And wouldn't it be nice to spend the day like that. You could catch up on some TV and some sleep.

Personally, I do find the recliner to be a lovely place to sleep. I'm someone who sleeps on my back and I find that making myself sleep on my side is nearly impossible. I toss and turn all night long struggling to get into a comfortable position. Some nights I just fall asleep from exhaustion after several sleepless nights in a row.

And as the days progress this problem gets worse and worse. It's not like I can chug coffee in the morning to try and counteract the tired. It's not like I can consume energy drinks. I am just left in my sleepy state and I have to struggle through the day.

I still have two months to do and I am dreading how difficult sleep will become as time goes on. I may permanently move to the recliner in order to get some sleep. Or maybe I'll just take up daytime napping. I haven't been any good at it in the past, but it may be necessary now.

I don't want to give up on my bed just yet. There is something lovely about crawling into bed with my partner, cuddling, and falling asleep. I don't want to sacrifice that intimacy, even if it means getting to sleep faster. Life will be disrupted enough when the baby arrives. I want to savor the quiet moments beforehand.

Most people think the first trimester is the hardest with morning sickness and hormonal shifts. But I think it's the third trimester that really tests your resolve. The lack of sleep. The Braxton Hicks contractions. The leaking breasts. The constant bathroom trips. There are a whole host of problems that come along with those last three months.

But the end is in sight. And at the end of it, you won't remember how much it sucked. You won't remember anything about how bad it was once you hold that little person in your arms. Women are biologically designed like that. It's how we guarantee the safety of the population. If we remembered how much it sucked no one would ever want to do it again.

So cheers to all the women trucking through their third trimester right now. You've got this. No matter how hard it seems at times, you will make it through this. And the end result will be worth it.

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About the Creator

Samantha Reid

I have been a creative writer for over 10 years, an academic for 7 years, and a blogger for 3 years. Writing is my passion and it's what I love.

Follow me on Instagram @samreid2992

Find me on Twitter @SgReid211

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