So, one of my least favorite things to deal with in clinic is something called restless leg syndrome. Sometimes, it's as easy as a person being iron deficient so you replace that and Wham!, problem solved. However, sometimes this is not the cause and all we can do is try a few different medicines to try and give people relief from this pesky little problem. Sometimes they work, sometimes it's part of a bigger problem, sometimes you never find something for this person who thinks you should be able to solve every single problem they come to you with and now hates your not-problem-solving ass.
'Pesky little problem' is what I thought it was until I started to be afflicted with this uber-annoying, nothing worse than wanting to sleep all the time, but you can't because you're legs feel like you just power-lifted a volvo issue. I tell you people, this sucks. You're snuggling your honey, trying to drift off to wicked crazy pregnant dream land and you just keep tossing and turning and can't get comfortable because your legs keep twitching and no matter which side you lie on, the other one starts to act up. You wake up after a fitful whole 4 cumulative hours of sleep and apologize to your bedmate for the perceived disturbance only to have him inform you that he's had the best three nights of sleep ever. It's like he's stealing your sleep mojo and the worse you get, the more soundly he sleeps. This may or may not breed some resentment and he might start to back slowly away from you when you start to make the crazy, sleep deprived googly eyes at him. To battle this, I picked up some iron pills and pop one each night. It works pretty well, but keeping with the idea that nothing is without side effects and lots of people start one medicine only to have to take another to deal with the firsts side effects, lets just say that the GI side effects of taking iron ( or opiate pain medicines)...sucks. But at least I can sleep.
Onto the more interesting discussion of late. So, all the names in this little tale have been changed because my girlfriend who told me about this crazy phenomenon, reads this blog along with her mother, smother in law, and sister. To bring this issue to light to these blissfully unknowing women would create a family disturbance something the size of World War 8. So I'm chatting on the phone with my pal and she asks what kind of birth plan we have, yada, yada, yada. She gets around to asking who will be there for the delivery and to help with Will and the baby after we get home. We haven't really talked too much about it or made any decisions but really I was planning to have John and I and maybe my mom there for the delivery, but nothing firm. Also, my mom is planning to come up from StL for 3-4 weeks after delivery to help out and I imagine my MIL will be around every now and again as they only live an hour away.
At this point, she took a deep breath and then launched into a 42 minute tirade on what happened with the delivery of her first of three little bundles of joy. Basically a hateful grandma competition the likes of that has never been seen unraveled right before her eyes. Who got to hold the baby first? Who's side is the baby named after? Who's child does it look like more? Who will be babysitting more? Who gives a rip? Apparently, grandmas do. She did not talk to the Gmas beforehand or discuss a plan (i.e. lay down the law)...and they all paid for it. I was not aware of this type of insta-crazy that afflicts soon to be grandma's but have asked around at work and it would seem that in about half the cases, this rang true. How did I not know about this? And FYI, don't giggle at how silly it sounds when talking to a mom who's had to endure this. Not really funny-haha for them to relive it and have you mock the questionable existence.
Apparently, it got so bad with the nanas that they began to refer to the other as the 'smother-in-law' to their respective child and caused quite the unharmonious half year surrounding what should have been the happiest time in those future parents lives. One would let herself into the kitchen and cook up a ton of food to be 'helpful' despite the fact that no one wanted to eat any of what she cooked and now they had to go grocery shopping to replenish the food stores. (I do have to say that this is a huge pet peeve of my GFs. When's the last time you went into another woman's kitchen and just took it upon yourself to make a meal without being asked? She probably wanted to kick you in the head) The other would take the liberty of opening and reading the couples mail to 'save them time' and would dispose of the 'junk mail' (i.e. it's illegal to remove anyone elses mail from the mail box, open it, read it, remove it from the trash to read it, whatever...illegal...read jail time.) This was combatted by the first by her doing all the laundry in the house and personally deciding to 'weed through' and help get rid of all the 'old' or 'too small' or 'unacceptable' clothes (of mom, dad, and baby) and ship them off to the salvation army prompting the exhausted parents to now need to leave the house for a shopping trip...something all new parents wish they had to do. All this done under the guise of 'helping.' All because the parents didn't have a talk with these chicks beforehand. All this BS that caused the new parents to contemplate moving far, far away from anyone sharing any DNA with their new spawn and prompting a name change.
So, the question is this. How often does this really happen? Are we at risk since our parents are not first time grandparents and seem to be with it the majority of the time? Should we have a little sit down with them or would that plant the seed of psycho? I just don't know and didn't think I even had to worry about this, so for now I'm thinking about sweeping it under the rug and seeing what happens. But will I come home to find that rug has been disposed of and replaced with a more baby-friendly or acceptable version by one of the 'helping' nanas?
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