The Pillow Fortress

We are now officially 2 months away from birth!

Most asked question this month: "Have you chosen a name?"

Most common response: "No."

Poor Karin's nights are becoming unbearable.

Karin loves sleep. She craves long, uninterrupted slumber, in rooms that are as dark and as silent as possible, stretched out in unconscious bliss, on her stomach. Ten hours is good. Eleven is better. Twelve is getting close to perfection.

These days, Karin's stomach is no longer available for sleep. In fact, given the size and weight of her abdominal area, she has few to no options in terms of positions. Sleeping on her back is not an option, for example. As soon as Karin turns onto her back, her heart rate shoots up to at least 120 and she becomes nauseous. This may have to do with the compression of some major veins. Whatever the exact cause is, one thing is certain: the little guy is taxing Karin's cardio-vascular system.

Sleeping on her side is not much better. The gravitational pull on Karin's extended belly is putting tremendous pressure on her little frame. If she lies on one side, she begins to suffer pain in her back and legs. If she turns to the other side she begins to suffer more pain in her back and legs. That exhausts the 4 conventional sleep positions.

Karin's solution is to build a small, but elaborate, pillow fortress around her each evening. She props here and there and everywhere in an effort to counterbalance the forces that are working hard to negate any chance she may have at minimal comfort. Her success rate using this method is, unfortunately, terrible. Even with the pillow fortress, a darkened and silent room, and my following her every instruction, she is in almost-constant pain and discomfort. She wakes up multiple times every night and has difficulty falling asleep.

For a typical person this would be extremely unpleasant. For Karin it is absolute torture. She has been robbed of her beloved sleep time.

Some people have said, "Oh, it's good training for what is to come after the birth." In case you were planning on mentioning this to her, it really isn't necessary. Sleep disruption is not something that we really need to be trained in. We'll just tolerate it as is happens. Then again, perhaps come April, when we are woken up at 2 AM and 3 AM and 4 AM (and so on), we will turn to each other and say, "Thank goodness for all that great training during pregnancy!"