Pregnancy Fatigue

Lately I'm wondering whether pregnancy fatigue results from uncomfortable sleeping conditions (read: where do I put my belly when I want to get comfortable?), or from hormonal and physical changes inherent to pregnancy itself. Because I am definitely not sleeping very well, with increased difficulty falling asleep as well as several trips to the bathroom in the wee hours. I'm also developing a pattern of waking sometime in the 4 a.m. - 5:30 a.m. range and not ever really falling back asleep. So, shorter and lousier sleep unsurprisingly contribute to fatigue in the past week or so.

How tired am I? So tired that the height of my productivity yesterday was scraping the rest of my pancakes into the garbage can so that the cats wouldn't eat the leftovers.

Sure, I also went to work at the nursing home for a few hours, but that involved recurring emotional near-breakdowns during the 20 minute commute there, and driving (unintentionally) in a huge circle on the way home. So I'm not really counting that as the height of anything, except maybe of my pregnant neurosis. In my defense, the circle-driving occurred when I was in search of food and didn't realize that the Sheetz noted in my GPS was the one located a half-mile from my workplace. A pregnant woman in search of food can't be blamed for anything, really. Not even for following her GPS like a lemming on the back roads only to blink in surprise at the same on-ramp she used not fifteen minutes earlier.

In other news, we own our first Graco item! This was a generous gift from our friends Matt and Laurie, who actually had a whopping four Pack 'n Plays in their possession. The item in question is a smaller, bassinet-type Pack 'n Play for us to use during the first few weeks of baby's life upstairs, so that we can leave our big Pack 'n Play downstairs for napping and diapering purposes. Anyone who has traversed our stairs will appreciate the blessing of not transporting any Graco items up and down them on a regular basis. We are, of course, not yet in possession of a big Pack 'n Play, but we trust that the Lord will provide a place for our baby to sleep. Already we have been given a crib and the aforementioned bassinet. How gracious is our God, through our church family!

Matt and Laurie also blessed us with a changing pad and, soon, a booster seat/high chair for our nieces and nephews to use when they visit. Our house is turning into such a baby-friendly place!

Dear me, it's time to get ready for our second birth class, which starts in half an hour. I'll let you know if I learn anything important!