I expected to get uncomfortable in the last trimester of pregnancy.  Instead, I’m feeling better!  This baby belly dropped several weeks ago and I finally could breath and bend over again!  I also finally fell in love with the pregnancy look and clothes were easier to navigate with the dawn of warm weather gifting me racks of maxi dresses at any given store.  Today is my due date so perhaps I will start feeling uncomfortable if I go much longer but for now I’m loving this!  I even still love to walk my dogs at the dog park and spoon my husband (though my big belly prevents any real proximity so all I can manage is a mimicked “spooning” shape behind his curled form with one arm barely dangling over his waist and both legs fighting to reach the beginning of his).

The one downside: frequent urination.

Sometimes I find this comical.  At night, especially if I’m sleeping well, I find it painful.  For the first week or so after I “dropped” I experienced almost hourly trips to the toilet.  Then I started sleeping through the first inklings of a tinkle need and, instead, would awake 2-4 hours later with a painfully urgent need to pee.  I now awkwardly roll my heavy body off the bed and experience a sort of thunk as the baby descends onto my bladder that is followed immediately by a pinching sensation that is my potty muscles fighting to keep the urine back.  I kind of laugh at the hilarity of my urgency as I awkwardly crash into the end of the bed and the bedroom door and various walls as I limp/waddle my way to the bathroom with hands outstretched and gripping anything that will help hold me up and get me safely through the darkness.  I’m usually thinking, “oh if anyone could see this they would pee themselves at the look of me.”  And then I think, “oh my goodness, if I don’t waddle faster I am going to pee myself.”  And then I remember that the heavy weight on my bladder and needed clenching actually hurt fiercely.  By the time I reach the toilet I am of sober mind and desperate intentions.  My reward is only sometimes a significant gush once I reach the porcelain throne; instead I, more often than not, experience a pathetic trickle of urine that hardly merits the treacherous journey to the toilet and the pain endured in transit.  In those lack luster tinkle experiences I sink crestfallen on the toilet, defeated by my need for relief and disappointed in the fruits of my labor.

Needless to say, though I love my pregnant belly, I am stoked to be getting rid of these nightly episodes of desperate urination soon!