Short Version: The Foetus vs My Sleep - rounds one and two of this exciting battle. Also, happy Spring Festival, and have a shiny and prosperous Chinese New Year!
A week ago, I informed Mr Bea that we had probably, all going well, had our last night of decent sleep for quite some time. The Foetus, you see, has started kicking hard enough to wake me up. A week later, I realise I should have placed more trust in my physiological abilities. Let me explain.
I'm a heavy sleeper. My body craves sleep. My mind craves sleep. In my past, my body and mind have conspired to produce awe-inspiring feats of sleep protection, well above and beyond the call of duty, or even, perhaps, evolutionary sense. My parents still tell the story of how I fell out of my holiday-home bed with nary a wakening. My record for unconsciously and repeatedly hitting the snooze button is two full, consecutive hours. I can carry on whole conversations with people who use the trick to make sure I really am awake this time, whilst serenely slumbering on. I can even answer the phone. "It's as if," my mother has sometimes commented, between clenched teeth, "you're still trying to catch up on the fifteen straight months of sleep you missed right at the very beginning." In fact, when next you wonder why babies scream at the same number of decibels as a jackhammer operates but ten times the stomach-clenching urgency, think of me. People like me are the reason for that.
So I should have known that my brain would have no trouble working around the slightly unusual sensation of being jostled from within. Last night, for example, I was in the middle of a dream. The plane flight I was on had crashed onto our old highschool sports oval, and the survivors - of which I was one - were being asked to audition for a new reality TV show. As I stood chatting to one of my fellow-contestants, I started to feel a kicking sensation in my belly.
"I didn't know you were six months pregnant," said a passing member of the crew, pausing beside us.
"Yeah," I confirmed, matter-of-factly. "It comes and goes." And right on cue, as we watched, my bulge stopped wobbling and flattened into the usual, non-pregnant shape of my abdomen once again.
I slept through til morning, at which time I awoke to find the pregnancy hadn't really gone at all - thank goodness. Never did find out about the reality show, though.
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I'm putting my money on the foetus. I bet evolution has put a secret back door in the part of your brain that regulates sleep, special access point for baby noises.
Hilarious :-) I hope tonight you'll get the answer (about the reality show).
Most nights I'm still sleeping well, though last night my legs were achy and kept me up for a few hours. It's a shame that when I'm that tired I'm too stupid to think of taking something to help with it. (The same happens if I get really bad heartburn in the middle of the night. I suddenly forget that I could just pop a calcium pill...)
It really is amazing how the body prepares itself in every way possible depriving you of sleep well in advance.
Happy Chinese New Years!
Your agent just called . . . filming starts in two weeks.
I know pregnant bellies change shape depending on where the baby is lying, but wouldn't that be a neat trick if they periodically swelled and then returned to complete flatness!
I bet you would totally make it onto the reality show - you have a great personality.
THAT is a strange dream!!
I hope you get the answer to the show, too! Do tell if you do!
You're mad! Glad you're sleeping though.
xxx
I wonder if the dream is really an interpretation of how you are feeling about this pregnancy - still not sure it isn't going to just go away.
I bet with a disappearing pregnant belly you TOTALLY made the reality show.
Funny how the subconscious works to assimilate the new reality of baby kicks in the middle of the night. I remember one night recently where I was tossing and turning... until Squishy actually started kicking me.
It reassured me enough to lull me back to sleep.
Maybe that's what keeps waking me up at exactly 2:30 and 4:30am every morning.
I slept through a fire alarm once.. right next to my room. Scary.
And when DH comes home late, I can barely muster a "huh" when he comes in the door.
I laugh when I hear old women complaining that they just can't sleep. My late MIL for example. It starts when you're pregnant and are either too uncomfortable or you need to pee. The baby then screams through the night. Rinse and repeat if there should be subsequent children. Then it's nightmares, glasses of water, school and study worries moving on to parties and then driving licenses so you have to stay wide awake until they get home.
Hell, by that time you've bloody well FORGOTTEN how to sleep through the night.
Heh.
Clever way to have the dream fit the kicks....but I'll wait and see what the foetus comes up with next.
:)
J
So funny, thanks for sharing.
weird dream. I am a very heavy sleeper and I love my sleep too.
Just wanted to be sure it was safe to return here (I say looking frantically over my shoulder). This is my first comment since "the incident."
As one who was once a great, heavy sleeper, I can say that not getting snooze time for any number of reasons is no fun. Here's to many hours of peaceful slumber...
I was thinking about you and wanted to note that I am in awe of how topical your posts are and how they have a mass appeal. Some pregnancy/IF blogs turn into a more narrowed version of the story, which is fine, but they are definitely hitting a smaller target audience. I think it's so cool that you manage to encompass most of us. I hope to be able to do that when we have our child (whether through adoption or pregnancy).
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