We are in Omaha spending time with family this weekend. It is an important time for my husband’s family to be together. It is an incredible, humorous and deeply loving family that I consider myself lucky to be a part of. If you pray, please include them all.
The visit also is giving me a taste of what’s to come. After surgery to repair my diastasis symphysis pubis (a.k.a. separated pelvis), I will be sleeping in the living room of our new place. We will have a double bed in the living room until I can use my legs. It’s going to be an adjustment.
This visit is allowing me to practice sleeping alone. Rather than make the trek down the stairs to the guest room my husband and I usually share when we visit his mom, I am on the main floor. The twin bed is very comfortable. And I didn’t have much more trouble than usual falling asleep.
My husband and I have been married for 22 months and lived together for more 37 months. (Does having an infant make you think in months?) I would guess we have fallen asleep together more than 90 percent of the time. The prospect of sleeping alone for 10-12 weeks is daunting. I know that is common for many couples who can’t be together.
I know I will be able to sleep, but it will be lonely. It is a comfort to know he is there next to me, even though for these last six months he has rolled back and forth as normal while I sleep stuck in the same position, propped on pillows. Sometimes he puts his arm around me until I fall asleep, other days he’s afraid to touch me at all. But he’s there, and that gives me peace.
Still, 10-12 weeks of sleeping alone, on a different floor of our house will be a small price to pay to get our life back. And we will get our life back.
Separated at Birth 