How to heft yourself into bed when you are 8 months pregnant

Like most couples, Mike and I sleep in the same bed. When I am pregnant, I mean really pregnant, our queen-size bed seems really small. This is the sleeping routine at our house lately:

We say our prayers. I sit up because if I kneel down chances are that I will not be able to get back up and/or the baby or some other vital organ might fall out. Mike jumps into bed. I slowly, ponderously, grunting and groaning, lift one swollen, super attractive, vericose-veined leg at a time into the bed.

At this point there are two position choices: 1. On my left side 2. On my right side. The problem with both of these positions is what to do with my arms. I have always felt that my arms are long and awkward. I remember those horrible slow dances in junior high where the boy would grab my waist and my arms would have nowhere to go. I would try resting them on his shoulders, but his shoulders weren't wide enough and one or the other of my arms would slide awkwardly down his shoulder to rest on his tricep. The point is, I can't figure out what to do with my arms. Anyway, I choose my right side (although from what I have read I am stopping circulation and my baby won't be as smart on this side), lower my upper torso very carefully onto the bed, wrap my arms around the pillow and wave good night to Mike across its expanse.

The trip from sitting to lying has only taken me about fifteen mintues. Once I am in a lying position, I feel around blindly for the covers--blindly because I can't see past my belly, nor can I reach past the body pillow. Usually Mike will feel pity on me and pull them up. Mike is a cuddly kind of sleeper, so I am pretty sure he feels animosity towards the body pillow. But he is a kind soul too, so he hasn't said anything. And sometimes when I turn over I have to wrench the body pillow from his grasp. So maybe he does like it.

Once I have finally gotten as close to comfortable as is possible with a stomach that weighs more than my husband, and we are drifting off to sleep, him with pleasant, non-remembered dreams, and me with weird pregnancy dreams invovling dinosaurs and realistic-sounding door slams, my bladder starts complaining. So I heft myself out of bed and head to the toilet. Trickle, trickle.

As I back onto the bed again I imagine warning beeping noises, and sometimes for fun I say, "BEEP. BEEP. BEEP," like when a large truck backs up.  Sometimes, after a bathroom adventure, or even just for fun, I switch it up a little and choose my left side. Turning over in bed practically requires a crane, but this way Mike can cuddle up to my back. This is nice for all of five minutes until inevitably, Mike rolls onto his back and the honing beacon in his elbow automatically seeks the small of my back. Then I gently reach behind me and shove his arm away from me and persuasivley try to kick his legs to let him know that he can't touch me.

Luckily Mike is a heavy sleeper and the next day when I recount how many times I shoved his elbow out of my back (5) or had to get up to go pee (8) and shifted the whole bed when I returned he says, "Oh? I slept through it all." 

Someday, not in the near future I know, I will sleep through the night and I will do it on my stomach or on my back. And then I will be singing Hallelujah. And I might stop being so ornery.