Nasty infection

Today marks a first for me. I have a bladder infection. Who knew a bladder infection could be so mysterious? So here is my little story:

Sunday I went to church and during the service my lower abdomen started to feel really funny – kind of like I had to pee but not really. We got home and I went to the bathroom but the feeling was still there. I told Garrett it must be Eden sitting on my bladder, so I got down in the “pod” position (the prep for a head stand) and tried to get Eden off my bladder. I stood up and the feeling was still there but I shrugged it off. Then about a half hour later my lower abdomen started to ache and get crampy. It was so uncomfortable that I laid on the couch pretty much the whole day. I read in one of my pregnancy books that cramps can be a sign of premature labor but I knew how sometimes I read into things a little too much, so I decided if I felt worse the next I would go to the doctor or if I started having contractions.

Monday morning I woke up and felt pretty good. The achiness and cramps were pretty much gone. The only discomfort I felt was a little bit of weird pressure/ache in my lower abdomen. I thought I was dehydrated for most of the day because my pee was a light brown color. Then later on it started to turn pink/red. Of course I got worried. I googled everything imaginable…I knew I wasn’t in preterm labor but what else would cause blood in my pee??? I felt great other than a slight discomfort. Well, by the time I was done googling I had diagnosed myself with one of the following: bladder infection (but I should be experiencing more pain and discomfort and burning and peeing more often), kidney infection (but I should be experiencing back pain), kidney stones (this was/is a real possibility because you don’t have to have pain just bleeding – the pain comes from the stone blocking or trying to pass), or bladder cancer (but I need to be over the age of 50 for this to be realistic). For some odd reason I thought that out of all of the above, I had bladder cancer. WebMD confirmed that my symptoms best fit with it, so it must be true. So I spent the remainder of my night upset over my findings (it was too late in the evening to go to the doctor).

This morning I went to the doctor and he was surprised that I wasn’t feeling bad. After taking one look at my urine and he said, yep you have a BAD bladder infection. He said that there was quite a bit of blood and it was so cloudy that he didn’t even have to test it. With that said, I was told to drink TONS of water and take an antibiotic (safe for the baby) and if I didn’t feel better by tomorrow morning to come in and he would run cultures and a few other tests to make sure that it wasn’t in my kidneys and stuff.

Anywho, the morale of my story is – drink lots of water, go to the doctor when you don’t feel right (especially when pregnant - I got scolded by my doctor for waiting so long to come in), being in the “pod” position does nothing for bladder infections but it is fun to do, and self-diagnosing is never a good idea.