Pee

Dooce blogged about peeing while pregnant today, and I can't pretend I haven't been having the same experience for months. There is nothing more disturbing to me than the way this pregnancy has affected my ability to relieve my body of waste.

Take last week. I was on an adventure and really, after it's over, what sticks out the most to me were bathroom excursions. Waiting in the security line at the airport? Torture because I had to pee so damn badly the whole time. Going to the Botanical Gardens? Eventual torture because I had to sprint/waddle to the bathroom and then only one drip of pee came out, while my bladder still felt like it was bursting.

In talking to other pregnant women, I've learned some of the tricks. Lean forward, spread your legs to make space for your belly, lean further forward until your face is on the disgusting bathroom floor, then pee. You know what happens when I do that? Farts. Farts happen. But not pee.

I have to pee right now. I just peed! Baby Love is kicking the crap out of my bladder with his long, strong legs (which I encourage! Be active, my love!) but I just cannot pee out the 36 ounces of chai I just drank this hour.

When my sister Betsy and I took Ananda to the park, I looked around in search of a toilet. I saw a little hut in the center of a den of vagrants. Betsy, in fact, thought one of the vagrants was an overturned tree stump and shouted, "What IS that??? What's that thing on the ground???"

Turns out that thing on the ground was a sleeping man, who was lying sideways in front of the park "bathroom." This facility was a hut with no door containing three "stalls" with dividers in between, but no doors. Unless you squatted in the third prison-style stall, the vagrant could see your every move through the lack of doors. Such was my peeing emergency that I went into the third "stall," pulled down my elastic-waist pants, and bent forward until I looked like one of those lawn butts. I am happy to say the experience resulted in actual urine.

But then we had to cut our park visit short because I had to go again twenty minutes later and refused to go back in that gharish place.

The rest of the trip was more of the same. Want to know the best bathrooms in Vegas? The one by the cash cage in Cesar's is nice, but the one outside the wedding chapel is better. Phoenix airport? Try the one before the security line. Pittsburgh airport? I go for the one on the international departures floor because nobody knows it's down there, to the left of Franco Harris and one level down. Cathedral of Learning? Go for the bathroom on the 6th floor because it's less busy and you can wail in frustration without embarrassment.

Want to know how to help a pregnant woman pee, like poor Dooce? I have no idea but would love to find out.