The Unpleasants

When I was 32 weeks pregnant with the twins, I felt like a small whale. Or a large whale. Something gigantic. I had over 10 lbs of baby inside of me, in addition to two placentas, lots and lots of fluid, and all my usual organs, which felt like they were being reduced to the size of peas. I was uncomfortable, to say the least. Caroline was up so high that I had to constantly push her legs and elbows out from under my rib cage. Charlie was so low that anytime he hiccupped, kicked, or wiggled at all, I peed my pants just a little bit. I generally prefer not to ponder on these "unpleasants" of pregnancy, but now that I am feeling as giant as a whale again, the memories are flooding back in.
While I was in the height of my discomfort with two babies inside of me, Forrest's work held an end -of-busy-season party. It had been a particularly awful busy season, where they were working 80-90 hour weeks for nearly 5 months. So to celebrate surviving the madness, we were invited to a lovely weekend resort stay, complete with meals, spa treatments, unlimited golfing etc. And it was wonderful.
I was treated to a facial, an hour-long pregnancy massage (with a giant pillow with a hole in the middle so I could actually lay on my stomach - pure bliss), an entire afternoon in the spa.. it was heavenly. One of the evenings, the company had arranged for all of us to get together for dinner at one of the fancy resort restaurants. I dressed up as fancy as is possibly for a small whale, and headed to dinner at 8 PM. That was a little late for me since my usual pregnancy bedtime was between 8:30 and 9:00. But I went anyway, and guided Forrest to a seat near the exit so I would be free to get up and use the restroom as needed. What I didn't know when we showed up was that we were about to be served a 500 course meal. Seriously, the food just kept coming. With plenty of time in between each course to cleanse our pallets, I suppose. I tend to drink a ton of water when I'm dining out. Especially when I have to wait a long time for my food. So I was drinking a lot of water, and my tiny little pea-sized bladder kept filling up all too quickly. And then Charlie felt it necessary to do a little jig at frequent intervals. All of this meant that I needed to use the restroom. A lot.
And the restroom was nowhere near where we were sitting. And it wasn't the "weave your way through all the tables to the other side of the restaurant" kind of trip to the restroom. The restaurant itself didn't actually even have a single toilet anywhere inside of it. Instead, guests had to stand up, weave their way through all the tables to get the to door, walk out the door and into the resort, and then walk another half-mile to the restrooms in the hotel lobby. It was quite the trek.
The entire journey to the restroom and back took me about 10 minutes. Which is about the frequency at which I felt I needed to use the restroom. So my night looked a little something like this:
8:00 - Seated
8:10 - Restroom break
8:20 - Eat first course, drink lots of water
8:21 - Restroom break
8:30 - Eat second course, drink a gallon of water
8:35 - Restroom break
And that was only the first half hour. This dinner continued on well into the 11:00 hour. And everyone seemed to be wide awake, with no intent to wrap it up anytime soon. Sometime after my 137th trip to the restroom, one of my husband's coworkers leaned in close to Forrest and quietly asked if I was ok. Forrest just laughed and responded that yes, I was fine, but pregnant women just have to pee an awful lot. Finally around 11:30, I could barely keep my eyes open. My legs were numb from sitting in the same chair for so long, and I needed to use the restroom yet again. I decided it was time for me to call it a night, so I excused myself for one final time and headed to bed while everyone else stayed and chatted and ate until heaven knows how late.
Thankfully I haven't had any experiences with the unpleasants this pregnancy that have even come close to that one. Even last night at Chili's, when I had to use the restroom four times during our hour long dining experience - it didn't even come close to what I experienced at the resort that night.
I had actually somewhat forgotten that resort dining experience until now. I think when I was pregnant with the twins I was just so beyond exciting to finally be pregnant that I blocked out all of the difficult and uncomfortable parts. I had waited so long for the experience, and it was something that I didn't know if I would ever get to experience again. So I chose not to dwell on the unpleasants, and to some extent I don't think I really noticed them. But let me tell you, I sure have noticed them this time!
It's a good think this pregnancy has been unpleasant, though, because otherwise I think I would want this baby to stay inside of me for as long as possible. Unpleasants make it exciting to think of the new baby finally being here, and help to drive away the terror of having 3 kids under the age of 2! Actually it doesn't completely drive away that terror... but it helps a little.