Lack of sleep seems to consume my daily thoughts. Going out at night, something I used to enjoy doing a lot, is now weighed up against valuable hours of shut-eye. They say most parents lose over 400 hours of sleep during the first year of parenting… I spent hours watching 3am television with a child firmly attached to one of my breasts…

Part of the problem is my propensity to martyrdom, especially when it came to my first child. Falling into the camp of attached parents who breastfeed their children and believe sensitivity and responsiveness rule, I was breastfeeding our daughter, Nina, round the clock, and waking up at all hours. Then after three months, I returned to work.

Something did not feel right…

I was walking around in a perpetual state of exhaustion and rather than listen to my body and the gradual sense of resentment I was feeling toward very early morning feeds in our bed, I continued to push my body. After 8 and a half months of breastfeeding, pumping all day in the office and then breastfeeding at night, I felt I couldn’t carry on. My mother arrived in town and helped me very gently prize our daughter away from my breast.

That was in December 2004. By February, I seemed to be feeling worse and then after a trip to the Carribean where I swam and slept for ten days and still felt exhausted and nauseous, I finally went to seem my GP for a blood-test. The writing was on the wall. I was diagnosed with severe Hypothyroidism, an auto-immune disease, that apparently is triggered by pregnancy. In my research and opinion, my Hypothyroidism, which I am currently treating with 150 mcg of Synthroid daily (yes I am looking into holitistic alternatives) was triggered by a profound lack of sleep which in turn, reduced my immune response…

Doctors in the West might disagree with me and yes I do have a disposition for auto-immune diseases but I believe I get my adrenal glands a run for their money. Let’s get this straight, I know mother’s are wired to cope with a rediculous lack of sleep but anyone under the age of 65 who says they don’t enjoy getting 8 hours of shut-eye every night, is denying them one of nature’s greatest resources.

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January 25th, 2006 | Permalink