Sleep/Walking: Before & After Becoming Pregnant

Now that my eating habits are pretty much back to normal and my puking episodes are down to about once a month, the two biggest changes to my routine since becoming pregnant are how I sleep and how I walk.

Neither was completely unexpected, except for the extent to which my routines have changed.

First of all, I'm more tired. My whole life I've always needed a full eight hours of sleep in order to wake up in the morning in a bearable mood. Now that's creeping up to at least nine hours. And please, don't remind me that all of this will change once the baby comes. I'm well aware that I'll be up all the time, at all hours of the night. Let me enjoy this while I still can!

The real issue, however, is how uncomfortable it is to sleep. Sleeping on my back is out -- too difficult to breath. So I rotate from my left side to my right side all night long, which by itself certainly isn't as easy as it was a few months ago. And the fetal position -- long my favorite way in which to sleep -- has been out of the question for weeks. I wake up every two hours to take a gulp of water and reposition myself. You could nearly set an alarm to my awakenings.

But lying on my side turns me into one big uneven mess -- the extra weight makes me want to lean forward (uncomfortable), but leaning back makes me tip over onto my back (difficult to breath). We finally moved the bed against the wall a couple of weeks ago, and I lean against a pillow on the wall for at least half the night. Once or twice a week I end up spending the night on the couch, which would be by far the most comfortable spot if only I were about a foot shorter.

But I do manage to sleep, and I haven't ever fallen asleep at my desk at work, which must mean I'm doing OK. But as for the walking ...

I've always been a fast walker, probably stemming from my days trekking from the dorms to my classrooms on Ohio State's gigantic campus. Living in New York -- where everyone walks fast -- has only sped me up, to the point where my marathon-running husband frequently asks me to slow down.

Now I'm the one telling him to take it easy. My sides ache after a few blocks of walking at my normal speed, and I've even taken to leaving for the subway a few minutes earlier in the morning so I don't feel like I have to rush. The slower pace is annoying but not that big of a deal -- except when it's raining or, I'm sure, in a few more weeks when it's cold.

But overall I've had a happy, healthy pregnancy, and the eight weeks of nausea and morning sickness that lasted from late March to late May already seem like a long, long time ago.