Sunday 24 February 2013

The sleepless nights begin early


No one tells you that the sleepless nights begin almost as soon as you discover that you are pregnant.

In December 2012 R and I found out that we are expecting a baby. This wasn't a complete surprise as we have been trying since September 2012. However, given that I am also a woman, and we have employed the services of a sperm donor, we figured it would take longer than it has done. I will come back to that process at a later date...

Since we've found out, poor R has succumbed to the somewhat dubious experience of what is, flippantly, termed 'morning sickness'. The initial excitement has now been replaced by me trying to offer R dry crackers, and her rolling her eyes, which now have bags under them, and looking as though she's going to be sick. As someone who has always been very healthy, the fact that she has spent the last few weeks virtually bedbound thanks to nausea and dizziness is something of a shock to us both.

I have become more of a house wife than I ever was, now finding myself in charge of all cooking and domestic tasks. When I'm not trying to find something she'll eat without wretching, I'm fetching her a mug of water that is at the precise temperature that she can swallow comfortably - that is luke warm. It is good to feel useful though. For the first few days, I was wondering what my job was going to be in the next few months as R did all the important growing stuff.

With R feeling so unwell, I have abandoned my usual heavy sleeping routine for a very light sleep that means I wake up every time she sighs or shifts in any way in bed, in case she needs me to do something for her. I know that once the baby is born we'll have our fair share of sleepless nights, but suffering sleep deprivation this early on I was not expecting!

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