The C word...

Today’s preg-post is brought to you by the letter S which stands for Stupid, Shitty, Sleep deprivation caused by Shane’s Snoring, Sacroiliac joint pain, and Severe cramping.

Over the past couple of nights I have been rudely awakened by the absolute bastard, formally known as cramp. Now being a dancer/dance teacher I have experienced cramp many times before but NOTHING like what I have had to deal with just recently. On the early hours of Thursday morning, (probably around 4ish) I got the most excruciating pain in my left calf muscle, so much so that it actually made me leap out of the bed shouting ‘Ow! Ow! OWWWWWW!!!’ My muscle had ballooned up and bulged out of my leg like I had been taking steroids and was giving Arnold Schwarzenegger (in his prime) a run for his money! Shane obviously thought the worst from me shouting out ‘oh my fucking god what is happening to me?!’ and thought I had gone into labour! He was scrambling around in the dark for a good 30 seconds before realising I was at the end of the bed with my leg out like a flamingo trying to get rid of the fucker! After a quick rub down ‘football style’ it eased off and we went back to bed…for approximately 7 minutes before our alarms went off…fabulous! During the early hours of Friday morning, ‘The C word’ came back for a second visit, this time in my right leg. Now, I said before that it was the most excruciating pain I had ever felt, well at the time that was true, however Friday morning's episode clearly made me realise that it was just a taste of things to come! 4.30am struck and so did the cramp – my leg bolted outright and started twisting into positions like it was being possessed by the devil. My calf muscle was actually rippling like the wave machine at leisure world and my entire leg was hotter than the actual sun - probably not scientifically true, but you get my drift! I managed to bring my knee into my chest (God knows how with this massive speed bump in the way – but I did). But that wasn’t helping! I then pulled my leg back until I was nearly in the splits on my back – pain aside, I was actually quite impressed with myself for a split second as I haven’t been able to do that for ages – but anyway, going back to the pain, and MY GOD was it painful, I had no other option than to wake Shane up again and get him to try and help me. I tried to wake him in less of a panic this time so I gently whispered ‘Shaaaane’ to which he responded ‘yeah?’ in a half asleep slur, ‘It's happening again’ I said. Well, I have never seen someone move so quickly from being in a lying down position onto all fours – it was like one of those cat videos on YouTube when someone puts a cucumber behind them and they leap into the air. He had clearly only heard the words ‘its happening’ and actually thought I had gone into labour….again! After clarifying the situation and explaining that I actually had some form of alien trying to emerge from my calf muscle he whacked my leg behind my head and said ‘its ok, I’ve got it, I used to have to do this at football all the time’. Well…all those years of rubbing down sweaty men on the football pitch didn’t work on me; neither did stretching it, standing on it, pushing against the wall with my heels down, getting myself into some weird yoga position which made me look like a gift bow or pinging my leg back like a flamingo like the previous night. After about 5 minutes of agony and contemplating cutting my own leg off, I started doing some squats which eased it off enough for me to eventually get back to sleep…again, for approximately 7 minutes before my alarm went off for work! Now, I didn’t get cramp again last night (thank the fucking Lord, Mary and Joseph) but I did wake up at 4.27am because baby thinks it’s absolutely bloody hilarious to do a step aerobics class on my bladder whilst using my ribcage as punch bag and the nerves around my sacroiliac joint as a yoga ball - don't even get me started on that one otherwise we'll be here for at least another 3 pages - long story short if you've never experienced sacroiliac joint pain/inflammation -  its painful and you end up walking like a 90 yr old that's shit themselves. I gracefully got out of bed, like a hippo that had got stuck in its mud bath, and went to the loo. I swear to God someone has removed about 4 inches from my right hamstring overnight – it’s so tight from the cramp, I’m walking like captain fucking peg leg with one stiletto on! Anyway, I couldn’t get back to sleep after that due to the list of ‘S’s’ mentioned above so decided to get up and write this bloody thing! I was actually planning to write an overview of my pregnancy so far, but seemed to get verbal diarrhoea about the whole cramp thing, so sorry about that!

Gona try and have a nap now so I don’t fall asleep at hypno-birthing this morning! It’s hard enough trying to stay awake in that when you’ve had a decent night sleep…..so wish me luck!

L xx