Sleep apnea is a condition where the sufferer has difficulty breathing during sleep. Specifically, they experience episodes of not breathing, lasting anywhere from a few seconds to a few minutes. The severity of sleep apnea is usually measured by how low the blood oxygen saturation level goes during one of these apneaic episodes. In our Mom-to-be's case, her apnea is a result of the skeletal and ligamental structure of her jaw and throat. When she sleeps and her jaw relaxes, it tends to close off her airway just enough to cause mild sleep apnea.
None of this is normally much of a problem for Dana. But in the last two months or so of pregnancy, she has been terribly congested most of the time, with some swelling in her throat and sinuses and whatnot. As a result, her apnea has really gone "pro". So we've decided to start using her Constant Positive Airway Pressure (CPAP) machine at night.
This is a lovely little invention that basically constitutes a fan attached to a mask with some fancy circuitry built in. The idea is to keep a constant pressure going into her airway so that when her breathing stalls, the pressure helps keep the airway open and she can continue breathing unhindered. It's a great idea in theory, but in practice the machine is very hard to tolerate. Imagine somebody giving you mouth-to-mouth all night long. Now imagine that that person is made of plastic.We started out Monday night with the contraption, and neither of us got more than about 30 minutes of sleep at a time -- Dana, because of the uncomfortable apparatus, and me, because I volunteered to make any necessary adjustments as needed, which were many and frequent.
Last night was much better, probably because we'd worked out many of the kinks on Monday, and also because we were both completely exhausted by then, so sleep came fairly easily, CPAP or not.
It occurred to both of us that this is probably excellent practice for when the little guy shows up, since we'll be up most of the night then too! But at least by then Dana will have some time off work. And everyone else around us will actually be expecting us to be exhausted. As it is now, people keep asking, "You look tired, did Dana go into labor already??" Not quite... [Side note -- everyone we work with has been extraordinarily kind and forgiving as we've gotten closer to the 'guess date', for this we are both so grateful!]
The good news is that as soon as the little baby shows up, the apnea should lessen dramatically as Dana's congestion clears out. So it's just one more little miracle to look forward to.
2 comments:
You would be surprised how many people have these gadgets! I never realized how many people are affected by sleep apnea. But you have a good point, get used to being sleep deprived! I hear babies keep you up at night a LOT!
Haha... my dad has a CPAP. My mom says it's like sleeping with ET sometimes, because the little O2 saturation thingy had an LED on it.
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