Je Suis Fatigue

Of the myriad early pregnancy symptoms (which I intend to detail over the coming weeks, you lucky, lucky readers...) fatigue is the one that's kicking my arse.

Fatigue isn't really the right word though, it's too fluffy, too insubstantial for the stopping me dead in my tracks tiredness I'm experiencing. Exhaustion is probably more accurate, although that implies tiredness after an activity, and sometimes, just the act of getting up and dressing myself has me done for the day.

I'm not making this sound pretty am I? Let me just say for the record that I am over the moon excited about this new little critter I'm a-cooking. Positively giddy with the thought of getting to meet him or her early next year and giving their fleshy babyness a good squeeze. See, the hyperbole runneth over. Detailing the misery is much more entertaining.

I've already mentioned how I can, and do, fall asleep at the drop of a hat. Thankyou Noggin Channel for entertaining my child while I slip in and out of consciousness. I am very ready for phase 2, the second trimester, to get properly underway, where I become a whirling dervish of getting-stuff-done. Or maybe I'm misremembering. I am getting better, and feel like issuing an email to all my close friends apologising for my flakiness over the last couple of months. I make plans that sound wonderful at 9am when I am incongruously feeling human, then issue phonecalls about 3pm when drained of all but the ability to breathe I cancel all my plans and lie on the couch like a Victorian woman with an attack of the vapours.

I have a great deal of respect for the human body, and not just because while typing this I'm also creating a spleen, a couple of ears and an endocrine system. No, it's a sly cookie because if you're doing too much (and that would appear to include working full time, mothering a 3 year old, being a landlord to the unwashed masses, and trying to refinance....) it makes you stop. Dead. These days my body shuts down when I'm pushing myself too hard. After a long stressful day I practically crawl to the couch, literally unable to do another thing. It sounds overly dramatic, but it's the kind of tiredness that would make you able to sleep on the top of a pile of hedgehogs, or on a long haul flight even. That tired. 

LK has been the biggest victim of all these shenanigans. We'll be out somewhere and I'll start to feel a little sick and a little tired. No big deal, but I'll mention the need to go home, soon. Then five minutes later I'm screaming 'Jesus Christ man, we need to GO HOME NOW, what's your problem, why don't you ever listen, WE NEED TO GO HOME NOW. OH GOD IT'S TOO LATE I'M BEYONE EXHAUSTED AND IT'S ALL YOUR FAULT. YOU MAN YOU.' It really happens that fast, and the poor boy looks at me with barely concealed terror and flees. Because that's what it feels like. One second you're a little tired and ready for a sit down, two minutes later you feel like you've been up til 3am at some college party across town with a mate who was supposed to be walking home with you but is instead pursuing the man of her dreams upstairs, and your hangover's starting to hit and you're so tired you could curl up in to a ball and sleep under the kitchen sink, except you don't know any of these people, and God you just need to teleport into your own bed right now or you're going to die.

A couple of days of this has LK so fine-tuned to my 'moods' that if I say I'm feeling a little tired he'll have downed his beer, have Anna packed and ready in her car seat, car keys in hand before I even have chance to utter another word.

I am clearly not the only one eager to get these first few weeks done with. 

Am I the only one? I will occasionally look through the 'newly expecting' message boards online and find everything from 'help, is my toenail polish going to poison my baby' to 'are plastic bottles going to kill my baby', but no-one is mentioning this sleeping 16 hours a day thing. Is it psychosomatic? Am I just checking out from my crazy life?