Nighttime Routine Interrupted

Everyone knows that there are two certainties in your anatomy during pregnancy. Your uterus will grow, and YOUR BLADDER WILL SHRINK. Like, shrink to nothingness. Like, wake up 5 times in the night to pee. FIVE TIMES. If you're not thinking about food, you're thinking about finding a bathroom. The first thing you notice when you go somewhere new is where the bathroom is. If there isn't one, you start to panic. Hikes are great for this. You know full well there's no hope but the woods. And this makes you have to go about 10 times more frequently.

              This is not a magical moment with my unborn child. This is me panicking about my                                       bursting bladder on a trail with no bathroom....

I once made a medical discovery. Yes, that's right! A MEDICAL DISCOVERY. During our travels in Thailand earlier this year, bathrooms were sometimes few and far between. This led to several desperate bathroom situations on my behalf. And so, I crafted the perfect explanation for such a situation, crafted a well thought-out email to friends, which I share with you now:

"As you know, we have collectively had quite a bit of travel experience. And there has been one ongoing issue that has concerned me. No cause for alarm, this is simply a collection of observations that has led me to this: my first medical discovery.

This issue has now been identified as FPPS: Female Pee Panic Syndrome. Allow me to elaborate...

Female Pee Panic Syndrome, or FPPS, is observed to have plagued two known females and likely countless others. Whilst traveling, there will inevitably be certain periods of time where one may be without access to a bathroom. This exact scenario is where FPPS strikes, with a vengeance. No matter what, no matter how little you drink, or how many preparatory pees you take before embarking, YOU WILL HAVE TO PEE with 150% more urgency than normal, approximately 15-25 minutes into your journey.

In cases where conditions are less than ideal, ie. no known access to rest stops, western toilets, the symptoms of FPPS are exacerbated.

FPPS has also been known to strike in the night in foreign sleeping environments, ie. camping, hilltribe hut.

Please note that no efforts to anticipate FPPS by peeing when convenient, have been successful. The logic of "peeing one last time"...just makes it worse.  Dehydrating oneself has also not held up to the effects of FPPS, and frankly is just a bad idea since you are likely traveling somewhere hot, you will get cranky, and the urgency brought on by FPPS will be out of control.

I will continue to document my findings, while hoping and searching for a cure. Boys, if you would like to consider a Fun Run of sorts, that may be acceptable, as apparently there is no such thing as Male PPS and that's just not fair.



Am I right?

Anyways, the other night as we were getting ready for bed, I thought Eric needed a fully detailed explanation of the woes of my nighttime routine, and how interrupted this routine is by my teeny bladder. When I start getting ready for bed, I pee. Then I floss (stay away pregnancy-induced gingivitis!), brush my teeth, use makeup remover and wash my face. Then I take my vitamins. After all that water running, I pee again. Then I slather on some Bio Oil (which better keep the stretch marks away or SO HELP ME...),  put lotion on my legs since it's so dry in here, and moisturizer on my face and hands. Then I go to bed and read for a while. Once my eyes start shutting, instead of just drifting off to sleep, I get up. And pee again. Bringing us to a grand total of THREE PEES during nighttime routine. This does not include the 2 bathroom trips during the night, which are now, also fully engrained into the routine.

There you have it. Pregnant women pee. A LOT. So if you ever find yourself in front of one in a bathroom line, run. Or you might end up like this:

This would be the most hilarious bathroom sign I've ever seen. Thus, I had to take a photo.