Of Sleep and Being Murdered
Some of the reality of living with a pregnant spouse has to do with sleeping arrangements. We have a nice queen-sized bed that’s got a nice comfortable down quilt and an assortment of pillows of various firmness. It’s relatively new (less than 5 years old) and has served us well.
No one ever tells you that when your spouse is pregnant, that she’ll start sleeping more strangely than before. No one tells you that you should expect her to take up more of the space than normal – kind of a given, knowing that she’s expanding (like a giant baby-filled balloon – but don’t tell her I said so). Now instead of turning over in her spot, she rolls across the mattress like an enormous elephant seal, squashing all in her path (me). She brings her knee up to stabilize herself on her side. This knee is specially positioned and shaped to jam directly into my kidneys at 2 am. I’m pretty sure this is her subconscious way of telling me that she’s not comfortable so I’d better not be either.
The other joy is that when I get up to go to the bathroom, I come back and she’s already taken over my half of the bed!
Never one to respond well to being woken up or given a push back onto her side of the bed, I don’t dare give her a shove now that she’s pregnant. It would be taking my life in my hands. Disturbing her during sleep is kind of like disturbing a feeding dog – you get a low warning growl that’s very clear that if you continue you’re going to regret it terribly. Besides, before I was able to push her over to her side of the bed without much effort. Now that she’s pregnant, this is no easy task.
She’s not violent but in the past she’d yell at me in her sleep or get up and wander around without knowing she’d done anything. I’m quite worried that waking her in this state will result in my being bludgeoned to death or throttled in my sleep.
So rather than wake her and get growled at and/or stabbed to death, I move to the couch. It’s nice and comfortable and I’m able to sleep free of the fear of being inadvertently murdered.
