I was walking home from the coffee shop yesterday, when halfway home I realized I had to pee. It was about a 6.5 on the HTG (Have To Go) scale. I stepped up the pace. “Hey, this is the Lazy Girl’s Guide to Exercise,” I thought, considering the title of a posting, or even an article. (Who could I pitch this to?) I already had all kinds of tips on how to fit exercise into a busy day, beginning with:
Imagine you have to pee. Badly. And you’re blocks from home. Now, recreate the same pace when you’re out walking. Even if it’s in the parking lot at the grocery store. Tighten the muscles of your rump as you walk. Push off with your feet. Go!
The need to pee has become almost irrelevant to me. Whenever I have to go and there is no WC nearby (i.e. stuck in traffic, in an elevator, in the car wash) I compare my HTG to the one occasion I had to pee so badly I could hear the ocean ringing in my ears. I was pregnant with Emma and getting an ultrasound. The HTG scale hit 12.5. An all time high. Thankfully, I have never gone beyond this point. An HTG of 13 would mean a visit to the cleaners.
Found this online about ultrasounds and water:
“You should drink 32 ounces of water before your examination is scheduled. Although you do not have to drink all the water at once, you should finish drinking the water at least one hour before your examination is scheduled to begin. DO NOT URINATE ONCE YOU HAVE STARTED TO DRINK THE WATER! It is necessary to have a full bladder for this examination.” [caps not mine]
I was told to drink an insane amount of water and hold it. HOLD IT! Did they realize what they were asking me to do? I was already going to the bathroom every twenty minutes. Holding that amount of water at that stage of pregnancy was akin to handing me a towel bar and asking me to chew it in half. Impossible.
So there I lay, stretched out on the table ready for the ultrasound. The weight of my bladder was pressing my other internal organs, creating a horridly squashed domino effect in my gut. I couldn’t think of anything but my poor abused bladder, which, putting it kindly, was seconds away from explosion. The thought, the NEED was so pervasive that it blocked everything else – I wasn’t able to cherish the moment. I couldn’t think of this beautiful baby, my darling hubby, our lovely future together as a family, nothing, only that I had to pee. Really really badly.
In fact, my internal dialogue was going something like this:
“Gottapeegottapeegottapee no don’t think about the pee anything but the pee oh don’t prod me there ultrasound lady because I gottapeegottapeegottapee”
The technician was running the wand over my abdomen, trying her best to get an image on screen. She was prodding and poking. Poking and prodding, oh my poor bladder. It was screaming for mercy and dialing 911.
Finally, something came up on the screen.
“See that big black thing?” she asked, pointing to a gaping hole that reminded me of something from Dr. Who. I wondered what it could possibly be. A tumour? A hole in my gut? It seemed to take up a huge amount of space in there. Was there even going to be ROOM to take this baby full term, or was I going to give birth to the blob that ate Brooklyn?
I summed up the courage to ask what it was, even though I knew that the technicians always defer to the doctor when they’re breaking the bad news.
“That’s your bladder. Gee is it full!”
We were finally done. She indicated the bathroom was down the hall. I don’t know or understand why, but my first thought was that I would wait until I got home. HA! Not! My rational self kicked in and I scooted out as fast as my legs could carry me.
I’m not entirely sure that my bladder has entirely forgiven me for the punishment. You’d think that maybe all that water, all that *holding* would have stretched it out and increased its capacity. No. In fact, the opposite is true. That day it curled up and lay in a corner, and it’s stayed there ever since.
