Momma Goddess: Sleep, Why Hast Thou Forsaken Me?

I’ve been thinking about it as I sit here a few hours past when I really should have fallen asleep, and there’s a few other epithets that really should have been added for the Virgin Mary and any other figure who is upheld for their pregnancy in a spiritual context (including goddesses, of course). We really need to get a petition going so that the record can be corrected to include the following:

• Our Lady of Perpetual Indigestion
• Our Lady of Edema and Itchy Skin
• Blessed Queen of Restlessness

I could add more but I won’t for fear of offending yet more of my readers who have a special devotion to Mary. All I can think is the poor gal suffered a lot to birth her son. I’m pretty sure she was furious when the day came for him to meet his destiny. We all know the real reason why Sampson never had his hair cut. His mother probably suffered heartburn of the worst kind from just about day one of her pregnancy and threatened to murder anyone who so much as thought of cutting a single hair off of the head of her child. I wonder if Sampson’s mother worried if he’d be born with a full beard much like I did when I was dealing with the worst heartburn of my life during labor for my first child.

That’s a scary thought, but we’ll leave it there. To be honest, the idea that Mary and other women back in the ages before Boppy pillows and all the other wonderful things that we have today managed to be so successful is just amazing. I’ll admit it, I am a spoiled brat for whining about this but I really don’t like the fact that it takes sleeping with 45 pillows piled up under my head and feet to keep me from having heartburn that doesn’t quit all night and feet the size of watermelons in the morning. I also admit that I am a spoiled brat for the fact that I really don’t want to sleep on my back because I don’t like to snore (which I do now because it’s the 3rd trimester!) and it’s always been hard for me to fall asleep on my back.

I am pretty sure that those women of ages passed and I share at least one point of irritation in common. When you can’t sleep because you can’t stop thinking about the household chores that need done, the various things that must be done for the baby, and strange little worries that strike you (in my case it’s been are my undergarments going to fit me properly after the baby is delivered) all because of the nesting instinct. Sure, it may be different concerns (because I’m pretty sure that Mary didn’t worry about if her maternity bra was going to be too small when her milk came in) but that biologically wired bit of insanity probably wasn’t any different back then. To you lucky women who never have, had, or will need to consider just what the nesting instinct is, I hate you. Well… No, not really. But I do envy you horribly and I think my eyes are changing color on account of that!

Here I am, sitting awake two and a half hours past when I usually go to bed (pre-pregnancy) and I can’t stop thinking about how we need to put together the dresser for the baby’s clothes or how I need to sort out all of the onsies to figure out which ones need new snaps in them. The sane part of my brain says that I really shouldn’t get into a panic over it while the crazy part of my brain insists that this is more important then eating and I must go deal with it, cursing the fact that I’m way too pregnant to do so safely and attempting scheme a way to magically* make the boxes lighter. Have mental arguments with myself on an hourly basis, including why I shouldn’t be sitting with my feet up when my ankles are easily regulation size softballs, and I am deliberately understating that one!

Swollen feet, ankles and everything else is just fun, isn’t it? I don’t think I’m dealing with pre-eclampsia (though I’m going to knock wood and pray just in-case). I would love it if I didn’t feel like my feet were encased in jello as I walked across the room. Having my feet look like balloon figures was amusing up until I realized just how uncomfortable it is. Nothing seems to work to make it feel better except sitting with your feet almost as high up as your head. Then your legs go numb because the baby is pinching off nerves and you wonder just what form of yoga-hell you have entered and how long you need to stay. Unfortunately, the time it takes to have the swelling go down in your feet is a lot longer then how long it takes for them to swell.

Honestly, I think that there’s some kind of mathematical rule that states it must be some strange factor of ten or higher. I’m not good enough at complex math to determine just what it is, though, so I can’t really back that theory up. Let’s call it a gut feeling. Speaking of gut feelings, isn’t that our stomach acid is supposed to stay in our stomach? That’s why it’s called stomach acid right? Well, I would like to propose a motion that when a gal becomes pregnant, her stomach acid gets renamed to: stomach-esophagus-everything else acid.

I also think that all the myths about drinking a glass of milk to ease heartburn should be banned from even being thought about during the 3rd trimester! And we should all just stop trying to avoid foods that trigger heartburn because everything is out to get us, my fellow ladies-in-waiting-for-baby! How else can you explain why a glass of water causes heartburn? It’s water! One of the most inert and harmless substances that we consume on a daily basis! It is Ph neutral! Chemically, it should dilute the stomach acid and make heartburn marginally less severe!

Yeah, I’m feeling a little cranky. Right now, my dear husband is asleep in the bed snoring away blissfully. My sweet toddler son, who now has another molar trying to come in (right after we had 4 teeth finally come in last week and the screaming stopped for a little bit), is passed out in his crib after his hour long screaming protest. Apparently bedtime is the bane of his existence, especially if he must sleep with out me holding him. I love my little boy, but when it’s 75 degrees with the windows wide open and the fan on, he’s a little to warm for me to have cuddled up to me for hours on end while he sleeps. Never mind the fact that I have enough pressure on my bladder from one child, adding a second one on top of that who is much larger… I think it would be come possible to see if I could explode like a water balloon.

Well, I think I got the majority of my ranting out of my system for now. I’m going to go stare at the ceiling now while I wait for my itchy feet and ankles to return to something that doesn’t make me look like I ran away from a cartoon of some sort. I think the idea for clown shoes came from looking at the feet of pregnant women. After all, they’re going to look huge and as though their inflated or something. Ok, my grumbling is done for now. I apologize if I offended anyone. I’m going to go sleep on the couch now with my 45 pillows after I clock myself in the head with a mallet.**

*Witchcraft Fact # 5,347: Magic versus physics, physics will always win. Don’t bother trying.

**It’s amazing how well the ends of the couch keep the pillows from falling off! I don’t need to duct tape them all together or something else crazy like that!