The Orange Jug…No It's Not Orange Juice

By: Allison Norris

I’m sitting in my living room with the blinds drawn and the air conditioner cranked to high. This is the fifth day in a row I have felt like a total prisoner to the heat. Except for doctor’s appointments and trips to the store for frozen treats, my connection to the outside world has been severely limited. Only during the week of my due date would Seattle make history. The hottest days… EVER. Of course.

My due date was yesterday, which came and went. In my head, I have settled on being two weeks late, making my “due date” more of a celebration that I had made it, all 40 weeks to the end. To celebrate this glorious day, I went to my doctor and told her about the excruciating headache I had and the sharp pain under my right ribcage. She told me she wanted to do a little lab work to make sure everything was all right and wrote me the note to get my blood drawn…AND to collect my urine for 24 hours.

Every time I go to the doctor, I have to pee in a cup at the start of the appointment so that they can check for all of the stuff that pee tells you. I don’t know what they check for, but I follow directions and pee in the cup. The last 5 weeks have been brutal, as my belly is larger and I cannot quite see my urine stream and am left guessing where it is with my cup in position. Thus, I pee on my hand every single time. It’s amazing.

The lab tech handed me a bright orange gallon jug with a 3 inch in diameter opening on the top. Thoughts of holding this jug in a position that would allow me to squat and catch my yellow stream made my blood pressure rise (which is not good while this pregnant…).

“Oh. Peeing on my hand for the next 24 hours should be great” I said sarcastically.

She opened a cupboard and said, “Oh no, you won’t do that, here is the hat. Just stick this in the toilet, catch your urine, and then pour it into the jug.”

She had to be kidding.

So now I was supposed to pee into a plastic hat, pick it up, open the jug, and then pour it in. What if I overflow it?! I’ve never measured how much I pee! This was a new low.

“And then be sure to keep the jug in your refrigerator.” Oh boy, am I glad to be living alone at this point.

She stuck my new supplies into a grocery bag and told me to drop it off the following day. I drove home and felt the urge to pee. I didn’t want to do it. I was sure that this was another way to prepare me for motherhood… I’d heard of the “pee-pee teepees” that you can use so little boys don’t pee all over their nurseries, or mothers, while getting their diapers changed. Maybe this was my way of having to get acquainted with bodily fluids? Uh oh, what about diaper blowouts? I don’t think I want to know how to get prepared for those…

Like a good pregnant lady, I followed directions and collected my urine for 24 hours, filling up the gallon jug. I only forgot once, because it was in the middle of the night when I am a robot and can’t even remember getting up to go to the bathroom.

So far, nothing really “gross” has happened to me while pregnant. I haven’t had anything weird to deal with… I guess it’s only fair that I had to come face to face with my own fluids. Not the worst thing. It’s like a little intro to leaking nipples and hemorrhoid cream – neither of which I have become acquainted, but am sensing that I will get to know them all too soon.