Limits!

This weekend we took to the backyard and cleared out the flower beds. I spent most of my time pulling weeds and trimming down old flowers. I didn’t feel like I was over doing anything. The weather was nice, we had light jackets on and George was working on hanging the lights on the house as I worked in the garden. In the end, George did most of the racking and piled things in the wheelbarrow to haul off to the trash. I felt great.

Later on Saturday night: About 10pm my hands started to feel a little sore. By midnight they were full on hurting. I tried ice and heat – nothing was helping. The pain was so bad I was starting to feel sick to my stomach. Now nothing was swelling, turning blue or visibly looking like it hurt… they just were hurting.

How do you fall asleep when your hands are hurting to the point of making you sick? Normally I would have taken a muscle relaxer and gone to bed. But since I am pregnant I had to find other ways..and so far ice and heat were not working. So George talked me through some relaxation techniques we are learning with the Bradley Method. They worked – I actually fell asleep some time after midnight!

However, shortly after 2am I was awake again! I sat there rocking back and forth while I rubbed my hands. Again I dozed off, all to wake again after 3am. This time I headed out to the living room. Now my legs were starting to hurt. The feeling was a tingle soreness feeling that was so intense I started to get frightened. I was gathering it was from the yard work – but how was I going to make it stop? Or when was it going to stop? It was the middle of the night… if it were the afternoon I would have called my OB office. George woke up and came out to the living room to check on me. He tried rubbing my hands – but it wasn’t helping or improving anything.

I looked on the internet and decided eating some bananas may help since they are recommended with muscle cramps. So I tried some bananas and headed back to bed. George worked on rubbing my leg and talking me through the Bradley techniques again. I fell asleep shortly after and stayed asleep until 9am! Finally! I woke Sunday to feel sore, but the pain was better. However, after a night like that, I just took naps all day on Sunday to try and get caught up on some sleep.

Lesson learned – while pregnant, you have to stop when you have done enough, not when you feel you have done enough. I should have stopped after the backyard portion was done instead of plowing to the front yard. Knowing your limits can save pain later.