Barfo-rama

Sorry for the lack of posting (not that you were refreshing madly hoping for a new post of pedestrian observations and trite assvice), but I was stricken by some sort of stomach ailment this week. I'm hoping it was food poisoning and not something that So.ren will get, but that may be too much to wish for. I did see a friend in Chicago who had recently had some sort of bug (though she was over it by that point), although if that's what I got, it had a four-day incubation period, which seems rather long. Anyway, fortunately this occurred while my family was in town for Thanksgiving, so they dealt with the baby and the entire Thanksgiving meal. Sweet! On the upside, I weighed myself and found that I was five pounds below my normal weight. Most of this is likely to be lost muscle, but whatever - we're going to a wedding in Mexico in a couple of weeks, so any weight loss is good weight loss.

I hope you are all having excellent Thanksgiving holidays, unless you're Canadian, in which case I hope you already had a good Thanksgiving holiday a month ago or whenever it was.

Six months

So.ren turned six months old yesterday. All I can say about that is: holy shit. One of my friends had told me that the reason everyone says kids get really fun at six months is because that's when they truly start to have a personality, and I think that must be true. Sore.n has lots of personality now, as well as lots of drool (pictured).

Tomorrow, I'm heading to Chicago for work, and then I'm going from there to NYC for the weekend, since I have a meeting there on Monday. That's four days without my little fellow. I'll miss him, but I'm interested to see whether my change of venue(s) results in any insomnia improvement. I had acupuncture done yesterday and then had a pretty good night of sleep last night, but it's too soon for me to claim any causality there.

Our families will be here next week for Thanksgiving. I haven't given any thought to the meal. I did make So.ren a bunch of pureed sweet potatoes, so I suppose I could defrost ice-cube-sized portions for our guests if needed.

I sleep on the couch now.

That pretty much sums it up: my sleep has improved, but it takes place on the couch. Last night, I successfully went back to sleep three times, including after the problematic 5am wakeup. I would have slept until 7, had my husband not startled me awake by coming downstairs to get his laptop. Maybe someday I'll work my way back into the bed. I did take a nap there yesterday, even though I'm not technically supposed to be napping. Oh, but did it feel good!

The psychiatrist I'd been seeing to keep an eye out for PPD gave me a prescription for At.ivan to help me go to sleep if I really freak out. I'm trying not to take it, though. I don't want to get into a situation where I can't sleep unless I have drugs - that will just require more (and more painful) reconditioning later on.

Now, a PSA interlude: This weekend, I took an official adult/child/infant CPR and first aid course. I'm done with the written tests and am about to go get tested in person on my skills. (This is a "blended learning" option you can do through the Red Cross.) The online component was quite useful and took about three hours. I'll spend one to two hours being tested today. It's really not much of an investment of time to feel much more prepared. Check your local Red Cross's website for details!

Finally, there has been a spate of second-pregnancy announcements among my friends lately, and guess what? They still upset me! Sure, I don't feel as desperate now that I have one really awesome little boy, but I'm still bitter. I think I'm just going to embrace it.

Progress, maybe

So I was really having what must be, like, a bona-fide anxiety episode regarding sleep yesterday. My stomach was in knots; I couldn't eat all day; and right before bedtime I actually PUKED. That has never happened to me before, this puking from anxiety. In the afternoon, I called the sleep expert in tears. She said I should back away from the hardcore reconditioning plan and focus more on relaxation. There happened to be a Yoga for Relaxation class at my gym last night, so I went to that, and then I also listened to some New Agey CDs as I was trying to fall asleep. That was kind of a bust, but I did manage to fall asleep in the guest bed, which I view as a step up from the couch. What's more, I managed to go back to sleep three times after waking up, including after what has tended to be my problem wakeup time each day of 4am or so. I woke up for real around 6, but this seemed lovely. I think I got 7 hours of interrupted sleep. If I weren't riding a tide of sleep deprivation, I'd feel totally normal right now. I don't feel great, but I do feel much better than the past two days. Like, I'm not going to dissolve into tears during the eight back-to-back meetings I have here shortly. That's a relief.

I made an appointment for acupuncture next week, so maybe that'll help my insomnia, too. I haven't seen the acupuncturist since my FET cycle. She'll probably think I'm coming back for more fertility help. Maybe she can throw in some maintenance acupuncture on that front. If there is such a thing.

Our little boy woke up at 6:30 today instead of 6, so that's some progress, too. We let him chatter away in his crib until 7. He's very into "talking" these days. He's still mostly spitting out vowels, but he does seem to be experimenting with some yayayayas and some lalalalas.

Okay, this blows

Night 2 of sleep conditioning looked promising - we stayed up later than usual, and then I was falling asleep while reading. But whenever I turned off the light to go to sleep officially, I would become overwrought with anxiety about sleeping.

So I got up and moved downstairs. Eventually, probably around midnight, I fell asleep on the couch. I then woke up at 4am and couldn't go back to sleep, despite trying more of the reading-until-falling-asleep thing. The anxiety was overwhelming.

So now I feel extremely tired, anxious, and on the verge of sobbing, and I have no appetite. Awesome! Maybe this will just drive me to become so tired that I'll have no choice but to crash out.

So.ren, meanwhile, has woken up at 6 the past two days instead of 7. He lies in bed making noises until we get him. Fuck Daylight Savings Time! Who needs it? It's screwing with everyone in our household at the moment.

Sleep training

No, I'm not referring to the baby - he's been sleep-trained for several months. I'm referring to myself. I've developed conditioned insomnia, according to the woman I saw yesterday in the Orwellian-sounding "cognitive rehabilitation" clinic at the local university hospital. Essentially, I got used to waking up in the early morning. When So.ren stopped waking up, I still woke up at 4 or 5 every day. This stressed me out, which then guaranteed I'd keep waking up at that time. This, in turn, stressed me out more, which began to affect my ability to go to sleep. In short, the bed became a place of stress. That's what she said, and it seems right to me.

So now I'm on a kind of brutal re-conditioning process. I have to restrict my sleep now in the hopes of increasing my "sleep efficiency" - ie, the amount of time I'm asleep while I'm in bed. I am also supposed to get out of bed every time I can't fall asleep or return to sleep within 15 minutes. Last night, this meant I got up nine times and changed venues a few times when I did get sleepy enough to try to sleep. I ended up getting about four or five hours on the couch. I am tired, but I suppose it's not any worse than what I was doing anyway. I am to continue this for as long as it takes, which should be two to three weeks. It's really not any fun, but if I could make it through 20+ weeks of feeling like crap with HG, and nearly 18 weeks of breastfeeding travails, surely I can do this. Right? Eh. We'll see.

Luckily, this weekend and next week, we'll have houseguests who are night owls. This supposedly will be good for me - ie, I can just stay awake until I'm so sleepy I can't keep my eyes open, and then I'll go to bed. We'll see.

In other news, I am very excited about the recent BFPs, but I don't want to jinx them. You know who you are.

We have mobility

So.ren was a bit behind in the whole rolling-over game, but, boy, did it come together for him this weekend. He can now speedily roll across an entire room, grasp a tangle of electrical cords, and shove them into his mouth before you can finish reading that one little email you wanted to check. I thought childproofing began when your kid crawled, but now it appears it should have been completed three days ago.