“Sir, I swear to God, I will pee on your floor”: The joys of the pregnant bladder.


Being pregnant gives you a glimpse into what is like to be an old woman. Not only is your body tired and creaky and sore (not to mention your eyesight goes), but you have to pee every hour on the hour.

During my first trimester, my bladder was working like gangbusters. I peed constantly. I felt like I was 5 again and my mom was asking if I need to ‘go’ before we left the house (but now instead of Mom, I was asking myself). Grown women can run to the store for dinner or take a train to the park for a picnic without considering that they may pee their pants half-way there. Yet, there I was day after day worried that each trip I took could be the one where I urinated on myself in public.

For your average woman in your average American city, this may not be as big of an issue, but living in NYC only makes this fear a possibility. For those of you who have not lived (or even visited) the big apple, public restrooms are like blue diamonds: they’re rare and are expensive (well more than you wanted to spend on using a toilet). Public restrooms in NYC aren’t really public in the true sense of the word, they are intended for an establishment’s patrons…in other words, buy something or we will keep our bathroom key right here behind the counter.

I think I made my poor husband drink enough Starbucks coffee to jump-start a car during those first months (and once again in the last three). However, if you are caught off guard with no money and nowhere in sight that isn’t a restaurant (as I found myself on many occasions) then you have three options: Grit your teeth and pray that you make it home, Squat right there on the sidewalk and risk getting a ticket for indecent exposure, or lie your ass off. I found myself becoming something I had always prided myself on not being…a bold-faced liar, and a damn good one at that. Sit-down restaurants became my target of choice (mainly because the staff is generally over-worked and don’t have time to deal with you and because they are the most likely thing to run into that won’t have a hole in floor for a bathroom).

“Hi, (in my sweet voice) I am meeting my some people here
for dinner and I was just going to wait outside until they arrive,
but can I use your restroom quickly while I wait?”

Pee quickly and then run like you stole something.