How do I write this down without incriminating myself, hmmm.

So! Okay. I have been having trouble getting a good night sleep for the past… I don’t know, 2 years? It can be due to sudden itchiness on my legs (somehow I feel something crawling/bug on my legs? I know it sounds creepy, but trust me it’s more annoying than creepy) to tossing and turning the whole night.

With the skin itchiness, fine, I can pop some Nivea moisturizer before bed time and it should relieve a bit.

The sleep quality, however, has been a mess and I couldn’t remember when I had a good night sleep.

Or, I did.

It was when Rey was just born, so 2017. When I had my contraction, the nurse checked my vitals and asked me some questions.

“Is this your first child?”

“No. Second, actually.”

“Oh! How nice! Was your son born here in Malaysia?”

“No. He was born in Jakarta. It was spontaneous birth.” (Meaning, not through C-section operation.)

“I see. So you already familiar with epidural?”

“A— what?”

“… Epidural.”

“Iiiiiiiiiiidon’tthinkIhadepidural. Honey, did I got any epidural when we had Wira?”

Ari shook his head. “Uh, no. We didn’t use anything.”

And yes. The hospital we used at that time is this strict believer of “everything should be natural”-thingy. I will explain to you after several paragraphs why I regretted it.

The nurse looked at me, slight aghast, and commented, “okay, so, we are going to use epidural ya.”

What happened afterwards were a blur. I’m not super sure what happened — I did remember they gave me this liquid laxative that smelled like papaya, then the contractions got more frequent, then the nurse put something on my IV and whoo-wee, holy mother of contractions and I still heard the nurses said, “please wait for the doctor to arrive” and I almost screamed, “YOU TELL THIS KID TO WAIT FOR THE DOCTOR TO ARRIVE.”

Then this is something that burned on my brain: The nurse put some kind of oxygen mask on my face and said, “this is a laughing gas. When you start to feel the pain, you can inhale this gas.”

And oh man what a trip that was. No pain, no chaos, only subdued muted yelling.

And this is why I regret the process when I delivered Wira. Please note, this is my personal opinion and choice. If you enjoy the experience, that’s great. With Wira, I remember the cold operation room, the pain, and the creaks of my bones as I tried to push the baby out. I remembered I was so angry at that time, and my mind kept yelling enough. I found myself really tired and smelly and dirty once the baby was born, and I never hated myself more at that time.

With Rey, I remember my body worked automatically — just like an instinct. It’s like every single cells in my body said, “oop. This kid’s rent here is due and we gotta push her out. On 3! 1, 2…” The body still pushed, yes, but it felt more like a team work of the whole body without the brain braining and questioning everything because the brain went on literal trip at that time.

When Rey was born, I was tired and smelly and dirty.

But I had the best sleep in my adult life.

I heard Ari called me amidst the brain haze, and I wanted to answer but everything was so heavy, and I heard the doctor said, “it’s the morphine. Let her sleep so she feels restful.”

I slept with a sleep that feels like decades and millennia.

I woke up, and thought I must have been sleeping for 2 days. I checked the clock, and I got so surprised I only slept for 2 hours. I showered, changed my clothes, drank warm Milo, and waited for baby Rey feeling restful.

So! The point of this post is definitely not trying to ask where we can get morphine just to help sleeping, but I wonder if there are ways to achieve that kind of sleep. You know, that kind of sleep where you feel like your health bar maxes up and you feel like you can conquer the world as soon as after you done showering in the morning.

I tried sleeping tea, pillow spray, lavender balm, and even melatonin supplement — and I haven’t got any noticeable results.

I’m currently eyeing this weighted blanket — I have it on my checkout cart on my Shopee app — but I’m not super sure if this will actually help or not. I also have tried minimizing my screen time before bed time, but it has been same old tiredness throughout the day.

I guess sleep quality is something of a mystery for all of us. The decrease in my sleep quality happened right at the beginning of the pandemic, so I would chalk it up as pandemic stress.

I’m not sure if my sleeping habit will improve when the pandemic ends (or if it will end after all,) but I feel it’s better to build a good habit for better sleeping habit.

Do you all have the same experiences like I have about sleeping habit, or perhaps you have some tips to share? Feel free to share them here!