Journal Excerpt

This stage of pregnancy is a bit like torture by bladder. Once again I crave watermelon constantly, while being unable to pee any less than ten times an hour, and any more than one thimble-full of pee at a time. The first thing I do now when entering a public space is scope out the location of the nearest restroom. When we were house-hunting, I considered peeing surreptitiously into model toilets. The realtor would ask, “what do you think about this house?” and I’d reply, “where are the bathrooms?” I ended up just avoiding any fluids, and I’m doing the same now on OR days. It’s a good thing none of our surgeries last longer than two hours.

I was getting up three times a night to pee, which pretty much cut off any hope of REM sleep, until I figured out shifting positions sometimes eased the baby off my bladder. So now instead of waking immediately, I turn over a few times while half-asleep, dream about peeing, and turn some more, before finally getting up. I think my main goal before October should be sleeping through the night as much as humanly possible.