weary

I am so tired that I feel hungover, but I assure you that I've not had anything to drink in months.

I'm rolling into my third trimester without much poise or grace.  I can feel the chronic fatigue starting to set in, and although I know from experience that this, too, shall pass, it's really hard to focus on that when you're in a fog.

Being tired makes me cry.

When I yawn my eyes water.  This is not pregnancy-related; I've done this all my life.  I looked it up once, figuring I was just plumbed wrong.  Turns out there are little muscles in your eyes that contract when you yawn, wetting your eyes with tears.  Mine must be the most tone muscles in my body because it ends up making my eyes drip tears all day long.

Some people flex muscles and look amazing.  I flex muscles and it looks like I'm crying.  (I think this is irony, right?  I'm too tired to access that nook of my brain right now.  I think it's cosmic irony, which artsy-fartsy literary types argue isn't really irony at all.)

I've been up since about 2:30 with Baby.  I made every effort to stay in my bed until about 4am, at which point I was just mad that I couldn't sleep and moved to the living room couch to try to rest.  This wasn't one of my brighter ideas, but you can't expect genius when your exhausted brain is running on fumes.  I tossed out here for about 45 minutes before I decided to forget it and just be up for today.

I learned in my last pregnancy to just try not to look at the clock when this happens.  Looking at the clock just makes me mad because I roll over thinking that it's got to have been 30-40 minutes since I last looked at the clock, only to see that it's only been about three minutes instead.  I know this, but I looked anyway this morning.  I can't make a direct correlation that this was the only reason I'm awake, but I am well aware of its contribution.

PSA:  The most stupid, insincere thing you can say to a pregnant lady who is exhausted is that this is good practice for being tired after the baby comes.

I read an article once that said pregnant lady brains actually shrink in the third trimester.  I can't remember if it was hormone-induced or fatigue-induced, but it was verified with MRIs.  It wasn't a huge shrinkage, but it was real and it was documented.  I remember after my last pregnancy Baby was about 5-6 months old before it hit me one day that I felt normal again.

By my calculations I've got about 12 more weeks of sleeping poorly related to the pregnancy.  Then the baby will be born.  Afterwards I'll still sleep poorly, but I'll be better rested and sleep better when I do get to sleep.  Then by May-June of next year I may feel human again.

Time to wake everybody else up.  This morning it will take a conscious effort to do this task with kindness.