Things That Don't Go Bump at 4 A.M.

My daughter apparently seems to think that it's perfectly ok to sleep at night.

I'm fast approaching the end of my 8th month of pregnancy, and surprise! it's getting harder and harder for me to sleep at night.

First of all, I'm in a strange bed. You'd think after 30 days in the hole here, that I'd be used to it, but I don't have a queen size bed to hog, and I believe this mattress has a plastic cover on it so it's kinda noisy too.

Plus, I'm just getting to cow-size so rolling over on a 38-inch-wide twin bed is difficult. I can only sleep on the left side or the right, and I can make it to my back, but then I feel like a turtle stuck on its shell with me wanting to wake up Brian and get him to help me get the rest of the way over.

But I'm nice enough not to do that. Yet.

Well, this morning I woke up to go to the bathroom for what must have been at least the 5th time, and when I got back to bed, I realized I hadn't felt the baby so much as flutter, much less kick or punch me for most of the night.

Now, I'm not supposed to panic and all that, or so I tell myself in the fog of my half-sleep I'm in.

Then I start poking my belly, and nothing. She's asleep and apparently does NOT want to be disturbed.

So I poke some more. Not hard, just a little "c'mon, honey. If I can sleep, you can sleep."

Nope. She's still not getting up to satisfy me.

So, out comes the Doppler. Ok, so if I can just hear her heartbeat for one second, I'll settle down. I take it out, turn down the volume, and in a flash, there she is. Slow 138 bpm heart rate of a baby asleep.

I keep my promise and turn off the machine, and go back to trying to sleep.

So guess who wakes up?

Yup.

She's been kicking me ever since this morning.