Honestly, at this point in my life, I would vie for women’s nights over women’s rights. So I wouldn’t be able to vote? So my bodily integrity wouldn’t be that important? So maybe I wouldn’t be able to work (or be paid for it)? So I couldn’t purchase or own property, seek education, enter into legal contracts….

I don’t give a BEEEEP! I just want to sleep. I just read this in the New York Times about women’s sleep and how the z’s we start losing throughout pregnancy are never, ever, ever regained. Pregnancy sleep loss (oh yes, that HUGE belly, that tiny bladder, those extra gallons of liquid cursing through our veins with kidneys on over-drive) leads to infant-caused sleep loss (is the baby okay? the baby is crying. How can my husband not wake up through these endless night tremors? the baby wants to eat again. Should I let her cry? Am I a bad mother?), leads to young child sleep loss (I’m yet to experience this, but I can only imagine) leads to a lifetime pattern of stressing about the minutiae of our day-to-day lives at the darkest hours. Work, children, our partners…our mental health, our aging bodies, our aging parents. The house, feeding the family, professional development. Meetings, events, dinner parties. Making ends meet, getting the dog to the vet for her yearly vaccines a year late, forgetting to take that beer out of the freezer (POP!).

(Maybe I just need a bedroom like this one, with my favorite bed linens from The White Company)

Sleep is FUN-DE-MENT-AL. Without sleep, our bodies feel like sh@t, our minds turn to slush, and our tempers soar to new levels. Patience dives to minus 7. Energy sinks to minus 20. And overall woman craziness bee-lines for the skies. Large quantities of chocolate of any quality are desired, and a glass of red wine becomes not only interesting at 9am but necessary.

Can you tell I had a bad night last night? Baby wake-ups turn into an endless accelerated cycle of thoughts, concerns, anxiety, mental lists and frustration at not sleeping when one needs to be sleeping.

How do you other women handle this? Or maybe you are one of the lucky few who doesn’t experience some kind of insomnia? Do you take (gasp!) drugs to help you sleep? This is where you share your eye-opening/life-changing secret strategy to getting back to those 8-9 hour nights of blissful, uninterrupted sleep. And how does anyone have more than one child after experiencing all of this?

My husband just asked me for a hug. My response: Your hug quota has already been met for the day. Indicative of the current state of affairs. Poor guy.