Well, the weekend brought more contractions, another trip to labor and delivery, and another round of Brethene. They sent me home with a prescription for a smooth muscle relaxer to keep further contractions at bay.

And they put me on bed rest.

It’s four days of bed rest and I am not handling things very well. Sunday was fine, but today both of my in-laws watched Charlie. It’s so incredibly hard to give up the control. It’s hard to be away from him. It’s hard to know what he needs and know that I shouldn’t be the one to give it to him.

Today after we’d finalized arrangements for the grandparent brigade that will be watching Charlie the next two days, I broke down and cried. For four years it’s been me: drying his tears, preparing his meals, and generally running the SS Charlie.

And now this. This is not a big deal. Even if I end up on bed rest for the rest of my pregnancy, that’s only for a couple of weeks. Almost anything can be handled for a couple of weeks. This is all worth it if the twins arrive healthy and ready to be taken home.

It still sucks, though.

Well, nothing like a little more drama at my house, right?

Yesterday as I was eating lunch with Charlie and my parents, my stomach started to feel like it was stretching apart. I honestly didn’t think a thing about it because let’s face it, with ten pounds of baby plus support systems, it’s not at all surprising that my stomach might feel a little stretched.

The day went on, the stretched feeling continued, and I called my Mother in Law to ask her if she could watch Charlie for a bit because I was still feeling a little “off.” Hubby came home, and I was lying in bed watching Medium on Netflix. I think this freaked him out a little. I’m pretty much always on the computer and I think when I wasn’t, he started to get concerned. Signs your social media addicted wife is feeling bad: she’s not tweeting.

About four hours after the “stretching” began, I conceded that maybe they could be contractions–but I wasn’t completely convinced. I took a warm bath bath, and they persisted. I drank a big glass of cold water, and I still felt off. Finally my husband insisted that I call Labor and Delivery and at least ask them what they thought.

I was getting kind of huffy at this point–I mean surely I would KNOW if I were have some sort of serious issue, right? I called Labor and Delivery and like I thought, they wanted me to come in for monitoring. I was even a little weepy as I  gathered my things and thought about an evening of being bored to death while wearing a sheet and staring at the wall.

Well, I guess I have to give the man a little credit because as it turns out, I was contracting. Ice water didn’t help, my urine showed no signs of infection, so they decided it was some form of pre-term labor. Didn’t see that one coming! I was given two shots of Brethene–an asthma medicine used to help pre-term labor–and the contractions stopped.

When asked what might have caused this, the nurses said, “your uterus is full.” Nobody seemed terrible worried about the possibility of me going into labor.

They’re supposed to deliver these babies in four weeks–I’m not entirely convinced I’ll make it that far. I guess we’ll just see.

Before I got pregnant, I was horrified by some of the things my friends would tell me about parenthood or pregnancy. Time and time again they would reassure me, “it’s not a big deal” and then describe some horror involving someone’s nether regions.

For the most part, they were right–certain things stop mattering when you’re pregnant. Other things fall by the wayside when you’re a parent. I know that I have never, ever discussed poop as much as I do now and I freely share details with my doctor that are just plain odd. It is what it is.

Last week, however, I managed to completely embarrass myself in a way I thought was pretty much impossible.

I started having contractions. I’ve never had contractions before, but this was definitely a tightening of my stomach occuring every four minutes or so. It went on for over an hour, ignored my big glasses of water and position changes, and finally I gave in and called the doctor.

The doctor was at one of his satellite offices, so they directed me to head over to Labor and Delivery to be monitored for a while. If you’ve ever been pregnant, than you know there’s a drill for these things: show up, pee in a cup, and lie down to be monitored.

In theory, none of these things should be hard.

My reality was a tad different.

I head into the bathroom to pee and that’s when things got bad.

There are approximately ten mazillion signs in the bathroom on HOW to pee in the cup. First this, then this, don’t touch this, stand on one leg and hop in a circle. It’s all a little overwhelming–especially if you’ve already pulled your pants down.

So there I am, faced with the oh-so-difficult task of peeing in a cup. Drug addicts and professional athletes around the world have completed this task with little or no effort. Heck, my husband had random drug tests ALL THE TIME at his last job–with someone watching, no less–and he still managed to get it done. Me? Not so much. I pee in the cup successfully, but with a ginormous belly in the way, I failed to notice when the cup was full. I actually didn’t notice a thing until the pee started to run down my arm.

Ew.

And all the while I have this list of instructions running through my head–don’t touch this, or this, or OH MY GOODNESS LOOK WHAT YOU’VE DONE! Ack! I finally give up, put the dang cup on the floor, in the process spilling even more pee. At this point there is literally a puddle on the floor.

I’m a grown woman, I have a nurse waiting for me to emerge with a neat cup o’pee and I have just left a puddle on the floor of a public restroom.

Awesome, no?

So, I get to work–I clean myself, I clean the outside of the cup, I clean the floor. There are a lot of paper towels involved.

And then I casually emerge and hand my cup to the nurse like nothing has happened. I may have lost a lot of my dignity when I became a mother, I’ve still got my pride.

Completely forgot my camera, so all y'all get is this lousy iPhone picture