Hot & Sleepy!

8/12 - Okay, so I'm really not sleeping well. I didn't think this part of pregnancy would start this early. To be honest, I still don't really FEEL like I'm pregnant. No morning sickness at all.No peculiar food cravings. I'm not unusually tired.

But this sleeping thing... So I'm reading "YOU: Having a Baby, by Dr. Oz." It explains why you should sleep on your left side during pregnancy, as much as you can. Don't sleep on your stomach, for obvious reasons. Don't sleep on your back because it cuts of blood flow to the placenta. Limit how much you sleep on your right side because the vena cava, the main vein that takes blood to your placenta, is on the right side. So sleeping on your left side is the best option. Well, my left side is also the hip that is injured. Unfortunately I haven't had a cortisone shot since last August, so it's really hurting.

I have read that getting a cortisone shot during pregnancy is okay, but I think I would want to wait until the first trimester is over, just in case. Better safe than sorry.

And on the better safe than sorry category, alcohol. I haven't been drinking at all since we found out I was pregnant. Jason and I were having a conversation last night and talking about some studies we had read about alcohol consumption during pregnancy. I'm doing my best not to put any toxins in my body right now (not using anything with parabens in it, not cleaning with stuff with fumes, no alcohol), but these studies are all inconclusive or basically cancel each other out. The only thing experts all agree on is that HIGH alcohol consumption, 8 or more drinks per week, causes Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. Below that level, there are actually long-term studies that show that drinking moderately, 3-4 drinks per week, causes the baby's IQ level to go up. With that said, until there are some clear results that this is always the case, I'm not drinking.

But back to the sleeping thing... I spend at least an hour a night wide awake now. I love sleeping, but I am finding that my body is warmer than I like. Also, it's been like 80 in our room every evening. I think I got it down to 76 before I went to bed last night, but normally I sleep best when the room is around 65. I've researched to see if other people experience their body temperature going up when they are about ready to go to bed, and apparently it happens to a lot of people, but no one knows why. I actually get so hot at night that I wake up sweating or, if I'm lucky, I just have to turn over every hour or so in order to cool off my side that was against the bed.