Cramping and dreams

Last night I had my first little scare of the pregnancy (beyond the terror that was the first trimester) when I experienced some pretty intense cramping. It kicked it just around the time I was settling in to bed, which was strange because I wasn’t doing anything remotely strenuous at the time.

The feeling I had was that all of abdominal muscles became simultaneously taut and stretched across my belly. Combined with this was some pretty intense lower back ache. I wasn’t sure exactly what it was, but it was clear that it wasn’t good.  I got into bed and lay on my left side with my preto pillow for support and tried to rest. It did calm down after 15 minutes or so but I can’t say I was feeling 100% myself or relaxed afterwards.

It was in this vibe that I went to sleep, which is really not recommended.  I spent the entire night having dreams, aka nightmares, that I gave birth to a premature baby (helloooo subconscious!).  Somewhat entertainingly, the baby that I gave birth to in my dreams was kind of a cross between Stewie, the baby from Family Guy and a very small, not so attractive monkey. No matter what I did, the baby kept rolling off the bed and hitting its head.  This does not bode well for me as a mother!

This is not the first time I’ve had particularly lucid dreams – they are pretty much a staple of my nighttime activity – but the first time it has been quite so terrifyingly pregnancy-related. Guess who is paranoid about having a premature baby?!

Dreams aside, I was a bit worried about the cramping so I emailed my doctor today. At the same time I asked him for advice on my upcoming work trip, which I found out today will be for the week after Easter and may well involve a flying schedule that takes up to 9 hours as there are no direct flights from where I am based to where I need to be.

My doctor is super-chill about all such things and was particularly blasé about our trip to London. I expected him to tell me it was totally fine and stop being so pathetic.  Not in those words exactly, but you know what they mean when they say the benign phrases.  Anyway, he shocked me by telling me I should skip the work trip as the journey time is too long and my risk of thrombosis is too high. I’ve mentioned here before that I do have a thrombosis risk and that’s why I take daily Clexane injections, but I was actually shocked and relieved that he told me not to go.  Because if the doctor says not to go…

I’ve got to discuss this with my boss tomorrow, but I don’t think she can really argue much with doctor’s orders and neither can my client. I guarantee there will be some huffing and puffing behind my back, but it is not worth the stress or the risk to fly unless I’m 100% confident that I’m okay.

As for the cramps, the doctor said it was mainly okay because I felt the baby move this morning, but he did tell me to rest more. This has been a bit of a wake-up call because I am a do-everything type, so I guess I am just going to have to actually admit to myself that I can’t do it all right now.