the sun’ll come out tomorrow

I mentioned a couple weeks ago that I’d been battling nightmares. I really don’t get why nightmares have to be a pregnancy symptom. It’s the symptom I hate the most, so much more than any other.

Most of my nightmares are basically the same: I’m being cruelly and purposefully hurt and rejected/abandoned by someone I care about, confirming my already-overly-present feelings of inadequacy. People who used to be a huge part of my life (but no longer are a part of my life at all) are now a huge part of my dream/nightmare life. It’s torture. The nightmares prey on my darkest insecurities. There’s one recurring nightmare that I’ve been having for the last couple months that is always the exact same, but interspersed are others, always following the same theme. Instead of waking up refreshed, I wake up physically and emotionally drained. You’d think I’d be losing sleep to leg cramps or bathroom visits or my huge round belly, but no, it’s nightmares and I hate them. They’re incredibly vivid and it usually takes me a couple minutes after I wake up to separate conscious life from unconscious life.

Some mornings I wake up and I cannot get past it. It takes me a couple hours at least to start to forget about it. I try, I really do, but I dare you to introduce me to one incredibly sleep-deprived person who thinks completely rationally.

I had an especially horrid one last night. I couldn’t get it out of my head. I got to work this morning and kind of dreaded delving into what I had to do. I work with a lot of very delicate subject matter at my Tuesday job and sometimes it’s really hard to handle, even on the well-rested days. I really enjoy it, as it’s most often rewarding, but some days it makes me deep-down sad. The morning went really well though, and right before noon my boss informed me of a payroll error in my favor and my day got brighter. (I do my own payroll, so it was my mistake, not his.) Moments later Bethany @replied me and it got EVEN BRIGHTER.

The rest of the afternoon flew by quickly and before I knew it my three favorite people pulled up in front of my office to take me home, make me dinner, and take my socks off for me. (What? YOU try taking your own socks off when you can’t see or reach anything below your belly button.)

The evening passed quickly, and soon it was that time of day again, that time that I dread, that time that I have to attempt to go to sleep. Noah’s been working nights for the last week and although I usually plan to go to bed before he leaves, I find myself still awake at midnight or 1am. Procrastinating. Last night Chuck and Castle and The Bachelor kept me company until nearly 1:30am when I finally decided that I was exhausted enough to go to bed and fall asleep right away. I’ve never had a problem with him being gone at night in the past, but this last week hasn’t been all that wonderful. I’m thankful that he’s finally working again, but the nights are more difficult than I’d anticipated.

The bright spot in all of this is that soon it’ll end. I only have to endure the nightmares for a couple more weeks, and then I will no longer be pregnant and the nightmares will end. I’ll be so enamored with our new little family member that I won’t have a chance to give pregnancy nightmares another thought.

I can’t tell you how much I’m looking forward to that day.

Filed under: pregnancy