Penny

Penny
Sweet Puppy.... as long as she's sleeping

Monday, August 13, 2012

An Open Letter To My Uterus

Dear Uterus:

I'm not sure if you have really been paying attention over these past 29 years, 5 months, and 21 days, but the body you're part of is not exactly known to be an 'over-achiever.'  Sure, we've been known to put in extra effort when it really counted, but as a rule, we've been pretty content in our mediocrity.

Take our musical forays, for instance.  Our ability to play by ear made us a very decent piano and French horn player.  However, our contentment with being decent led us to not practice.  Had musicality not come so easily to us, had we been forced to practice and practice to master the music, we could possibly have been excellent instead of being 'pretty good.'

You may also want to refer to our academic history as well.  We pulled down As and Bs in high school without cracking a book.  In college, we faced a little bit more difficulty but were able to maintain Bs and Cs with minimal studying.  Had we not been so content in our own mediocrity, we could've made Dean's List our entire college career, and not just our last semester.  If bits and pieces from the lectures hadn't naturally just clung to our brain and we'd been self-controlled enough to force ourselves to study for hours each night, we could've graduated with honors instead of just simply walking across the stage.

But you, Uterus.  You apparently want to get this whole child birth thing perfect.  So much so that you have decided to start practicing already.  Sure, the occasional Braxton Hicks is one thing.  It caught me by surprise the other day when I literally arched my back and had to grab the arm rest for support, but it was a one-time shot.  You need to start preparing yourself, I get that.  I forgave you for that incident.  However, today..... today was not cool.  I do not appreciate laying in the fetal postion (although the irony does not go unnoticed) for over an hour, clutching my abdomen as I have consistent contractions every 10-15 minutes.  I do not appreciate having to call the after-hours on call OB in a panic because I don't know if I need to come in or not.  I don't appreciate being terrified that I'm going to give birth 10 weeks early.

For the record, I do thank you that you stopped 'practicing' and that keeping my feet up and drinking water is making you happy.

So please take a note from the rest of this body - let's just be content in our mediocrity.  We're pretty good at winging it at the last minute.  I'm sure this birth thing will be fine.  We got this.

Sincerely,
A very stressed out mamma who would prefer not to go into pre-term labor.