‘She’s got the Jimmy legs!’

Dear Pregnancy Guru,

I tried to follow your advice, I tried to embrace the power of positive thinking, I tried to feel your words whilst repeating them over and over again: “I feel great and pregnancy is easy on my body. I feel great and pregnancy is easy on my body. I feel great and pregnancy is easy on my body…”

But it didn’t work!

My body has been taken over by a little thumb-sucking alien baby and quite frankly it’s not enjoying the experience. Reason number 412 as to why I will never get pregnant again: Jimmy Legs!

For the past four days, I have been subjected to an excruciatingly persistent dull ache in both my legs, mostly in my calves, and mostly when I’m in a seated position – which given all the commuting I do, is 90 per cent of my day. Sometimes, however, usually in the car, the ache creeps all the way up my right thigh. It’s not a sharp pain, it’s not a pain that would cause screams of agony, but it is a pain that has me wanting to reach for the nearest butcher’s knife to chop off the leg in hopes of getting rid of the ache. Seriously, it’s like I got freaking creepy crawlies running around inside my legs, and it’s at its worst in the car, which is not the greatest place to be feeling the heeby jeebies let me just say!

I finally texted my pregnancy chick in the know today to ask what she thought it might be, and she suggested restless leg syndrome.

I mentioned it to Big Ring and right away he cued a Seinfeld reference:

“She’s got the Jimmy legs!”

I Google doctored the ailment and discovered that not only is pregnancy a common cause of this, but that diabetes is too AND that’s there’s no known cure for it.

Are you freaking kidding me?

I swear every possible pregnancy ailment out there I have been subjected to. And I’m keeping a list, oh yes I am, a list that seems to get a new point added every day. Why assemble such a list? Because I have been told time and time again that once I hold my little thumb-sucking alien baby in my arms I will forget all the bad stuff, and that one day I will want to go through all this again. Nuh-uh. This list, which will be laminated and stored in a safe spot only to be pulled out if I ever get that preggers urge again, is my insurance!

Good thing I only ever wanted one 😀

8 thoughts on “‘She’s got the Jimmy legs!’”

  1. Welcome to the club Katie, I am not pregnant nor diabetic but do suffer from RLS. Believe it or not, the more that I run the less it bothers me, freaky huh?

  2. i get restless leg syndrome all the time and I’m not even preggers. I get it ALL the time when I fly which drives me INSANE. someone suggested compression socks but that didn’t work.
    I find getting up and moving around or giving my legs a good massage often helps. I usually try really hard to take my mind off it and sometimes it goes away.
    commuting though? yeah…… not good!

    1. Mario gets it during road-hockey season which is quite vexing for me when I’m trying to fall asleep and his leg keeps bouncing all over the damn place… my legs haven’t done that yet thank goodness. They’re just painful as hell… I’m actually wondering if it might be sciatica 🙁

  3. i have a few friends with RLS. They have experienced some relief by eliminating alcohol [likely not applicable to you!]; caffenine and taking 500+ mg of magnesium daily…I have no idea if it is medically ok for you to take the magnesium, but it couldn’t hurt to ask you medical team. Also massage and regualr walking [you got this one down!] have helped my friends. Good luck : )

    1. Thanks Debb. I don’t drink alcohol, rarely have caffeine, and am walking quite a bit… walking’s really the only thing that relieves it. I have talked to the docs about the Mg, but that comes with other complications unfortunately, so I’ve opted against that one 🙁

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