One thing I’ve come to realize about this whole childbirth thing over the past week: It’s a gory business, kinda. Not just the whole baby comes out of this disturbingly small orifice, covered with cheese, part, either. There’s a frightening amount of blood involved as well. Which is why, gentle reader, I’m up at 4:15 in the morning writing this instead of sleeping blissfully next to my warm husband.<\/p>\n
You see, I didn’t really want to go into this last week, but at my OB visit, after she checked my effacement and dilatation, I bled quite a bit. The doc checked me again (this time with the dreaded speculum) and said my cervix was just very, very sensitive. Well, once the bleeding stopped (which it did fairly quickly), I didn’t worry about it much. However, yesterday, it started bleeding again. On its very own! It quit as quickly as it began. About an hour ago, I got up on one of my myriad trips to the bathroom and there was a considerable amount of blood again. But now it’s gone.<\/p>\n
Needless to say, after a pregnancy that up until now has seen nary a drop of blood, I called my doctor’s office to report the incident yesterday afternoon. The nurse just chalked it up to my sensitive cervix and that my afternoon bathroom visit had probably instigated the bleeding. Since I have an appointment at 1:45 today, there was no need to run over and get checked out. Now tonight, there is no reason for it whatsoever. What’s going on?<\/p>\n
The only explanation I can think of is that I have felt absolutely premenstral since Sunday. It comes and goes a little, but for the most part, it feels just like the kind of bloated crampiness I feel right my period. (We’re all comfortable with this, right? Hope you’re not reading this over lunch.) In fact, yesterday afternoon, for a split second when I saw the blood I thought, ‘Oh, great. My period’s here.’ Except I haven’t had one of those since October of last year! Oops! Do you think I could be pregnant?!<\/p>\n
Tonight I feel exactly the same. And the crampiness isn’t contractions, either. At least none that register on my Richter scale. Plus, I woke up hungry so I had to have some oatmeal. It’s weird, but this entire pregnancy, if I woke up hungry, I had to have oatmeal. <\/p>\n
So that’s my treatise on the gore that precedes childbirth. And my water hasn’t even broken yet! Is it just me, or am I going to be wiping up after myself immediately following the birth? I promise I’m not that much of a neatnik (that honor goes to my friend Ryan), but I hate to be the cause of biological messes (yes, I still feel badly about your sink, Ryan). Something tells me, though, that once I have that baby in my arms, I won’t notice a thing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
One thing I’ve come to realize about this whole childbirth thing over the past week: It’s a gory business, kinda. Not just the whole baby comes out of this disturbingly small orifice, covered with cheese, part, either. There’s a frightening amount of blood involved as well. Which is why, gentle reader, I’m up at 4:15 … <\/p>\n