Insomnia.

Last week, my wonderful mother kept my kiddos at her place for 5 days so the man and I could catch up on rest and projects.  IT WAS WONDERFUL!!!  It fully reminded me of those days spent in Montana as a stay at home wife.  Endless freedom, and endless opportunities for rest.  I.  Felt.  Healthy.

Now a little over a week back into motherhood, I feel like I am wasting away again.  My body clock has always been one that has a hard time falling asleep at night, but absolutely loves to sleep in.  Although I was still going to bed around 9 pm the nights my kids were gone, I was able to sleep until I woke up naturally in the mornings: usually somewhere around 9.  I had totally forgotten what it felt like to wake up feeling rested.  It was wonderful.  I learned last week, lesson numero uno being that pregnant me requires 12 good hours of sleep to wake up feeling rested.

The day after my kids returned home, I woke up feeling SO refreshed, with all of these hopes that the energy would last.  FAIL.  A week into it I am totally exhausted again.  My body is screaming at me moment by moment to pa-lease rest, but the two little girls running around this zombie of a mommy make that an impossibility.  I am so tired.  Like all I want to do is cry tired.  Like I feel dizzy and nauseous and want to fall over tired.

There are really two problems contributing to this, and they feed off of each other like two viscous beasts.
1) My kids wake up with the sun.  No, that doesn't mean we get them out of bed, but the noise from their rooms starts booming through the house every morning before 6:30 am.
2) After 7 years of marriage, I am now unable to sleep alone in my bed.  This means I am reliant on my husbands sleep schedule at night time to fall asleep.

Take last night for instance:
I went to bed as soon as my kiddos were in their rooms for the night, around 8 pm.  This started a 2 hour process of me trying to fall asleep.  I'm pregnant of course, so falling asleep can be tricky.  There is the uncomfortableness of my body, and the fact that if I don't eat every 3 hours or so I become STARVING!  So this was the problem last night.  I ate dinner around 5, which meant by the time I was going to bed I was starting to feel hunger pains.  I was so exhausted I thought the tiredness would overcome the hunger pains, but I was so wrong.  At 9, after an hour of trying to sleep, I had to go have a snack.  I then tried to fall asleep for the next hour, to no avail, and finally at a little after 10 had to go beg my husband to please come to bed so I could sleep.  So selfish.  I know.  He wasn't tired yet, so was reading next to me with a headlamp, and since I could hear EVERYTHING, we of course started chatting.  This turned into a freaking debate over the fact that his family hasn't spoken to us in almost 2 years (because of me, of course) and whether or not this means they dislike me.  DUH DEAR, they clearly hate me.  Anyways, after that 2 hour debate, I was of course hungry again, had another snack, and spent the next 1 hour trying to calm down my adrenaline rush, and finally fell asleep around 1 am.

My body, I'm sure, would have let me sleep in until 11 this morning, but no, the kiddos once again started making their racket before 7 am.  So here I am: tired, nauseous, dizzy, and just freaking wanting to cry my eyes out: all from lack of sleep.

Just trying to die to myself once again.  I chose to be a wife, I should accept my husband and his sleep schedule for what it is.  I chose to be a mom, I should accept my kids and their sleep schedules for what they are.  I chose to become pregnant, I should accept the fact that this little man is already causing me to sacrifice.  And I SHOULD be ok with that.

But I am not, I am tired.  Operating on 6 hours of sleep, when I really need 12.  I feel trapped.  There is no way out.

Its days like today where all I can do is rely on the strength of Another to make it through.  Moment by moment I have to die to myself, moment by moment I have to work on my own kindness and self control, moment by moment I have to choose thankfulness.  Moment by moment I have to fight my flesh.  And moment by moment I have to choose to be patient.

I will one day again feel rested.  I estimate that wont be for at least 10 years, but one day I will have rest when I need it.  And I will be a better me because of it.  For now I have to live under the assumption that I am SUPPOSED to be feeling this way right now, and I have to look for the WHY of feeling this way right now.  Why am I supposed to feel this way right now?  And what am I supposed to be learning through it?

Another chapter in the death of my selfishness underway.  Ugh.