It is 4:30 am, and I am breathless, breathless.
I pace the cool tile floor and raise my arms above my head, wanting to breathe without work, without thinking about it, trying to damp down my growing anxiety. Not being able to breathe is a phobia of mine, one I just discovered that I share with my mother. I will tear away anything that covers my face, I am prone to panic when my head is underwater, and this compression, this infernal constriction of my normal breathing, is causing me greater distress than it probably should. I spend hours telling myself – do not hyperventilate. You are getting enough air. There are nights when I cry (though not tonight), and the hitching sobs make it harder to take in breath, and then I turn on all the lights in the front room and put on my Firefly DVDs and try to ward off the panic, forget that I am breathing.
I did not have this trouble with my first pregnancy, and I don’t understand why it is so much different this time, so much worse. When I am up all night gasping, which seems lately to be 4 nights out of every 5, I feel such despair in the dark. I think how preventing sleep is a form of torture. I think how chronic insomniacs often commit suicide, because they can’t face another night of wakefulness. No need to call a hotline, I know my terrible insomnia has an end date, but I found myself frantically searching my archives last night for when my baby dropped in my last pregnancy. 37 weeks. Right now I am nearly 34.
It is 4:43, and I’ve slept a handful of minutes each hour since 9. Last night, the night before I started work, I slept from 4-6:30. I have a project already, an interesting one, but yesterday afternoon when I read the law treatise and the cases in the harsh fluorescent lights, the letters swam. I’m glad I’m working, and I wish I wasn’t. They are not getting my best, though I hope what I have to offer is good enough.
In the time it’s taken me to write this harangue, the baby has squirmed his way a bit further south and it’s not so bad. There are many moments in the day when I realize I haven’t thought about my breathing in hours, and I feel great relief. And then he’ll move somehow, and suddenly I’m panting like I’ve run a mile, and wondering if my midwife would approve of an elective C-section at 33 weeks. I cannot imagine how women who carry multiples survive the crushing weight. My son is probably around 5 pounds right now – a friend recently had triplets who were each over 5 pounds. From twins, triplets, and the like, dear lord deliver me.
It’s nearly 5, and I have about an hour before I need to get up for the day, so I’m going to close this laptop and try to sleep sitting up on the couch. Soon I’ll be out here spending my 4:30 am’s breathing freely, rocking a little cradle while a quiet documentary flickers on the tv screen, marveling over my tiny boy, and these wretched hours will be a fading memory. He is worth it, worth it, worth it.