Every time I go for a check up with my OBGYN, they make me pee in a cup. It’s the first thing I do when I get there. Well, after I sign in. It’s not like I walk in the door and pee in a cup right there in the waiting room. But it’s the first thing they make me do as soon as I get called in to the “behind the double doors” area. I’m not entirely sure why they make me do this every time. Are they making sure I am still pregnant? Because I could save everyone a lot of time and mess by reassuring them that, unless there is an alien creature in my uterus kicking and punching around, yes I am still knocked up!
But they make me do it. And it’s not that peeing in the cup is time consuming or anything. It’s just that I suck at it. I always have. Some women have mastered this art but I have never been one of them. I was never one of those kids who could be out on a nature walk and just pee behind a tree when the overwhelming urge to tinkle suddenly hit me. No, I’d have to hold it all the way back to the nature center, forcing back drippage the whole way, because there was absolutely no way I could squat down behind a log and not pee all over my jeans. And just in case I wasn’t positive this would be the case, I tested this hypothesis once in college when, after a long night of drinking, I couldn’t hold it anymore and begged our DD to please pull over and let me pee behind a parked school bus at an elementary school we were passing. (Don’t worry….it was 2am and the middle of the summer so no worries of 8 year olds or creepy janitors spying on me.) I lifted my skirt, removed my underwear (just to be safe) and proceeded to pee all down the side of my leg and into my shoe. Theory validated….I cannot aim my stream.
Which is why I hate when they ask me to pee in a cup at the doctor’s office. Even with the clearly labeled diagram on the back of the door (complete with illustrations, no less!), I cannot seem to get that pee into the cup. Occasionally, by sheer accident, I do manage to get some in which I guess pleases the nurses since they never make me go back and attempt to collect more. But it’s a messy, messy process. One that is only getting worse, the further along I get in this pregnancy and the harder it’s getting to see around my watermelon of a belly.
The good news is, I no longer have to worry about pee running down the side of my leg. Just my hands.
Photo by chunkysalsa via Flickr