Candace: I have not really slept in a long time. Well before our surrogate got a positive pregnancy test, I have been deprived of sleep. Chris is a snorer. I’m talking lawn mower, high-definition surround sound snoring at 100 decibels, kind of snoring. Not to mention we have a fur baby that likes to kick and lay horizontally between the two of us. So there is a bit of a crowding issue. The very noticeable dark circles under my eyes resemble that of raccoon that has been in a boxing match are now just part of my every day challenge of trying to cover them up with globs of concealer. The point is, I can “sleep” through pretty much anything yet not truly get rest. More so, I have inherently developed the skill of being able to wake up, take care of business and fall back asleep.
When I first started to induce lactation in March, I would wake up at 2 am for 15 minutes at a time every night to pump. Part of inducing lactation is pumping 8-10 times a day to help trigger your body into producing milk. I was glad to do it too. I couldn’t participate in uncomfortable pregnancy sleep or experience kankles so this was just one small thing I could do to feel like I am contributing to the cause. When Jellybean came along I was a re-sleep veteran, so I thought.
The problem that I face is now I wake up at the sound of the tiniest little squeak. I worry that if don’t hear her snoring (yep you guessed it, she has inherited that fine trait from Mr. Chris) she has somehow stopped breathing or if she just moves around to reposition in the wee hours of the night I will lean over the bed just to take a quick peek and end up getting lost in thoughts of how she came to be. Aside from that, there are many nights that we are up pacing the floors. Lately she has started to cut her first tooth and we are starting to get a dose of sleep regression.
Sleep is underrated though. Don’t get me wrong here, I would love to sleep in one day in the distant future. But until then, I have learned to figure out the art of the re-sleep and enjoy those moments where I am needed in the middle of the night.
Chris: If you are one of those people that has no trouble falling asleep at night, I am jealous. If you are one of those people that can nap on a car ride, congrats! You just made my naughty list (post was written close to Christmas). If you are one of those people that can dose off in public places such as planes, trains, and automobiles (another holiday nod), then we are no longer friends. I am not one of those people. It takes me at least 30 minutes to fall asleep every night, I simply can’t take a snooze in the car, and don’t think I have dozed off long enough on a plane to fly through a single state. But lack of sleep is nothing new to those waging war in the IF trenches. Actually, check out this article to see a slightly different perspective on how much sleep you should get (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-christopher-winter/sleep_b_2084339.html). Brief synopsis, if you fall asleep really easily, maybe you are sleeping too much. I have never heard of anybody getting too much sleep but suppose that in some distant land, in a time long ago, that could be a problem.
Nope, lack of sleep seems to be the more rampant nemesis in these parts. With our Jellybean, we have a whole new reason to be short on the shut-eye, but there were plenty of events on the road to Jellybean that prevented us from our horizontal yoga. Whether it was worry, or timed meds, or getting up wicked early in the morning to remove the IV in Candace’s arm, I have run into the lack of sleep situation on several occasions. Lack of sleep is one thing, and a tough one to deal with, but the bigger challenge that I have been getting a lot of training with lately is re-sleep, that is, going back to sleep after getting out of bed in the middle of the night. And, as suggested by the title, there is an art to it. Let’s go through the steps of a re-sleep situation.
- Sleep
- Wake-up
- Do something
- Go back to sleep
Seems straight-forward enough. Really, steps 1 and 2 are not that challenging and often step 2 is involuntary. So I am going to skip any discussion on those steps. The real “art” comes in steps 3 & 4. Regardless of whether you are sticking yourself or a loved one with sure-to-be-awesome-feeling fertility meds or responding to a crying Jellybean (I never heard them cry in the candy store), you have to make a measured decision on just how awake you want to get. Do you want to wake up enough to do long division in the chance that you will have some complex drug mixing to do? Or do you stay sleepy enough that your house could be getting robbed and you would be none the wiser? For the past few nights, with Jellybean exercising her nocturnal vocal range, I have been opting for the latter.
Now before you call CPS or PETA or whoever you would call for suspected confection abuse, hear me out. Like I said before it is tough for me to fall asleep, whether it be for the first time or 37th time that night. This issue is exacerbated (love that word) the more awake I get. So, if I am bright-eyed and driven with an espresso-like clarity, I can plan on lying in bed contemplating the true importance of thread count when I am not sleeping in the buff. (Hit the mental image erase button) Not an exciting endeavor to say the least. Instead, I wake up just enough to combat gravity, quiet my angry Jellybean, and slump back over in bed. Art right? Take care of baby, administer medication, or connect to a breast pump to induce lactation while staying awake enough to complete the task but not too awake that you are nudging the sun to get up instead of the other way around. It may never be displayed in the Louvre, but it is certainly a poetic display of human existence.
