Sudzzzzzzz

When you reach this point in pregnancy, certain symptoms kick in that are not just annoying but downright aggravating. It’s not enough that your belly is so big you can’t bend over easily to tie your shoes anymore. You have to worry about things like maintaining bladder control when you sneeze, too.

For me, one of the most annoying “side effects” of late-stage pregnancy is Restless Leg Syndrome, which honestly I would never even believe is a real affliction if I wasn’t suffering from it night after night. The same thing happened the last time I was pregnant. All of a sudden somewhere in the third trimester, when I’d lie down to sleep at night — just as my body was relaxing and my mind was shutting down — one of my legs would get a mind of its own and NEED to move. Not like in a “twitching involuntarily” sort of way, but more like a “Your left leg cannot be still any longer, you need to move it or flex it or something” mind trip sort of way. I’m telling ya, it’s excruciating.

Anyway, I was suffering from this most annoying affliction while visiting my in-laws a few weeks ago, and my mother-in-law said, “Have you tried a bar of soap?”

“Huh?” I asked. (I’m so eloquent around my mother-in-law.)

She told me she’d heard from more than one person who suffered from RLS that once they tucked a bar of soap beneath their bed sheet, the feeling went away.

Now I’m a skeptic when it comes to shit like this, but it was my mother-in-law, and she was just trying to be helpful, so as loony as it sounded, when she emerged from her linen closet with a new bar of Dove, what could I say? I tucked it under the fitted sheet in the guest room that night .... and I Slept Like A Friggin’ Baby. No twitching. No mind trip. No lying silently next to my husband, flexing my leg muscles to try to ease the tension without having to physically get up and walk around. It was amazing!

Fast-forward to two nights ago, when Chris got sick of listening to me bitch about the restless leg thing every night, and sick of lying awake as I tossed and turned because of it, and sick of asking me night after night if I’d put a bar of soap under our sheet. Which I hadn’t. Because, really, a bar of soap? Come on.

So he got out of bed and shuffled downstairs sometime near midnight, returning with a brand-new bar of Irish Spring. He shoved it under the fitted sheet on my side of the bed, shut off the light and climbed back under the covers.

And I’m tellin’ you, it was like instant relief. My leg muscles just totally relaxed, even as my mind was saying “There is no way this is going to work.”

That night Kostyn woke up (as he does every night) and as I lay next to his bed, comforting him back to sleep, the restless leg syndrome reappeared. I had all I could do to stay still so he’d drift off again. But as soon as I got back into my own bed It. Went. Away.

I guess all I’m sayin’ is, I now believe soap can give you both a 'clean, fresh scent' and a good night's sleep.