Tonight I am trying EVERYTHING to please please please be able to sleep or ease the horrible Restless Leg Syndrome symptoms. Last night after I updated, I had the worst night's sleep ever. Ugh. I was awake until 5am. I got up 3 times to pee, but was already awake so I wouldn't have been WOKEN all those times just to go to the loo, I'm sure. My legs were just awwwwful, I could hardly bear having them attached to my body, honestly. It sounds ridiculous but the sensation can drive me to tears and make me want to almost literally claw them off. I got up at 2.45ish because I was getting scrunchingly hungry again, so I went downstairs and ate a bowl of Cheerios, and put the laptop on for some Facebook "company". I was really upset and tearful and frustrated to diddly, and the distraction (and chat with Deborah!) calmed me down. I went back to bed at 3.15 but still didn't sleep until somewhere around 5am.
Samuel woke at 5.45am for the day, but he slept through other than that, even with a very fidgetty Mummy next to him! :) No milky overnight again. When he woke me and I checked the clock, I felt like I had begun to get drowsy but hadn't actually been able to sleep yet. The thing that made me realise I must have slept a little bit was the fact that it was light outside and I would have noticed that creeping in over the previous 45 minutes. I think it was starting to get light when I was last still awake. Ugh, sucky!! The other boys were getting up already and I took Samuel downstairs and was able to go back to bed until 7.15 when Neil had to get ready for work. I think I may have slept a bit of that time, but I was awake for a good while to start with and didn't check the clock.
Anyway NOT ENOUGH SLEEP!!!! I have been so tired out today, and the boys have watched TV most of the day, which also SUCKS. They seemed to pretty much lose the ability to use their brains for anything useful once it finally got switched off, so even if desperate I mustn't let them watch that much TV another time. Yeurgh! My legs have been crazy bad all day, which is much more unusual - it's a vicious cycle though because RLS (or mine, at least) is seriously aggravated by fatigue. The more tired you get, the more you are bothered by RLS. Annoying isn't the word! I have tried to lie down on the living room floor today but the RLS has been so bad that I couldn't stand to lie down for more than a few minutes, so I couldn't even rest much today.
I was beginning to get so anxious about tonight's sleep time looming ever closer, desperate not to have a repeat. It's infinitely much worse than just simply not being able to sleep (which sucks enough on its own!). I can't escape the sensation and know no remedies to even take the edge off when it's bad. Tonight I looked online for some simple home remedies that might make a difference, to try instead of feeling so helpless in the night. I also phoned Heather and talked to her about it for a while, and she had various ideas to try and was (as always) very supportive and encouraging.
So tonight I ate chicken for dinner - Neil was wonderful and went to Harvester to bring me back a grilled chicken breast with the works so I didn't have to cook anything (he wanted leftover pot roast which I had already had for lunch today). Chicken apparently has the same kind of sleepy properties that milk does. I had half a glass of red wine with it, and a banana afterwards. After a bit, I ran a nice warm bath and also massaged my legs. Now I'm dressed comfortably for bed and sipping a hot milky drink, and then I am going to stretch my calves and hamstrings and get in bed for the night, and HOPEFULLY find that the various things I've done this evening made a difference and I can get to sleep, and catch up with some good restful sleep tonight. It's actually rather late now, but it took me longer to get all the little bits and pieces done than I thought over the course of the evening!
The main reason I'm updating though, is that while I was in the bath I couldn't help thinking, "Wowee, my bump certainly does look proper BIG tonight!" and I seem to be lumbering (lol!) more than I was a couple of days ago, to get about from room to room. I feel more cumbersome, just today. I know I just measured my bump two days ago, and definitely have no intention of getting all obsessive about it, but I DO feel I have been eating for a baby having a growth spurt for 3 full days now, and with the way I look and feel this evening... I just became too curious not to whip out the tape measure. Again, I was very careful to find the right place to measure from and to, and lay nice and flat, and measured "blind" so that I could feel the right places and not cheat by looking at the tape measure as I did it! ;) I wanted to jump up and punch the air when I picked up the tape measure with my finger marking 36.5cm!!!! That's 1.5cm in 2 days!!!! I know it's not perfect accuracy or anything, but still, VERY encouraging! :) I don't know much about whether the time of day makes a difference to the measurement though... it has always been day time when I've been measured before. I did lay back down and check Elijah's position again right afterwards, in case his head has popped up higher again (which could account for a bigger measurement), but it's firmly under my pubic bone, the same as before.
I'm so excited!!! I think he has grown!!! And if I AM right about the measurement, then I now measure 36 and a half weeks, which is only 2 weeks behind (a bit less, even!) - not even cause for concern any longer, if his measurements concur at the scan! Yaaaaaaaaay! I feel so much better just knowing my bump is bigger, but we'll still see what's what at the scan.
Okay, Samuel is wakeful suddenly and I need to get to bed and try to settle him (and myself!). I'll update again soon! Thanks for the lovely comments on Samuel's "birth story" according to Heather's notes, which I posted this morning! It was SUCH fun to re-read them! :)