Stress Incontinence, not a "Pretty" subject for today.

Hi family & friends!

I'm just popping on here to ask for you to say a little prayer for me, Ian, and Aaron. Mostly for me, as Ian & Aaron are not as "bad" as I am. (Boy, isn't that the truth, in so many ways...)

It's been about 2 weeks since we started with what I originally thought was allergies... and then it turned into a cold. Just a normal cold, it seemed, until the "traditional" 7-10 days for a virus was coming to a close with no end in the symptoms...

I've literally been suffering with both a head and chest cold for 2 weeks now. And the coughing part is REALLY bad. I don't normally get too deep in the "yucky" stuff on here, but people... I need you to know.

When you've been pregnant for 28 of the last 48 months, given birth to 2 babies and have a 4.5 pound baby pushing down on your bladder, controlling accidental urine escapes is difficult. It's called stress incontinence and it is NO fun. If you've had a baby, you know what I'm talking about. Towards the end of pregnancy, a little cough or sneeze or laughter and, well, you're running to the potty and most likely changing your underpants. If you're lucky, it didn't seep all the way to your pants-pants and you can continue on your day, but if you're not-so-lucky, you're changing the whole outfit. It sucks. Just one of "those" pregnancy things that most ladies prefer not to talk about and it doesn't stop when you've had your baby. You have to work at getting full control back and sometimes you don't! And sometimes... you get pregnant again and start all over.

And then sometimes, you're pregnant for the third time in 3 years and you get a really bad cold. When that happens, forget about it.

Just put a towel on your chair and plan on changing your pants and underwear many times. It's worst at night, when you're laying down and a coughing fit attacks you... there's no stopping it.

It's really frustrating. And it makes you feel really gross. Since your nose is stuffed up, you walk around wondering if you smell like pee. Wearing pantyliners is not a fix, those things don't have any authority against the coughing-fit-induced-pee. In fact, wearing a regular pad doesn't either. You'll probably try depends or poise pads or something, in hopes of not having to change your pants 20 times a day and end up with 6 extra loads of laundry only to find that they are both very uncomfortable and unable to control the problem anyway.

All I have to say is, this baby girl pushing on my bladder better be really stinkin' cute. (Just kidding, of course, I'd love her even if she wasn't.) And if this is the "new normal" for the next 6 weeks and 6 days, I'm toast.

So anyway, please pray for me. Please pray that this cough goes away today. I've been coughing all week and it does seem to be improving, but the peeing-while-coughing is only getting worse.

Also, just so this post isn't entirely about me... Ian and Aaron are both coughing too. They're not as bad as me... and as far as I know, they're not peeing when they cough. Of course they could be, because they wear diapers anyway and I wouldn't know. I'm taking them to the doctor today to make sure THEY don't have pneumonia or sinus infections or ear infections. I've been on amoxicillin since Wednesday. It's about time for us to be over this.

*sigh*



PS- If you were laughing at this post, that's fine. I meant for it to be entertaining. Laughing, although it makes me pee my pants, is a good way to keep myself from screaming into a pillow. That would be bad too, because screaming would probably make me cough, and then... well, you know.


***UPDATE***

Back from the doctor... both have Ear infections and "probable" sinus infections. Both are now on antibiotics. Awesome.