Pregnant bodies only do one thing right...

and that is make babies.

They wake up when they're still tired, throw up when their tummies are empty, and hurt when they're not injured. It's easy to see how such a process, normal though it may be, has been pathologized over the years.

Good morning! I've been up since two!

I will now share a story that Ryan advised me against posting, in the interest of my readers' delicate dispositions. Apparently, he has never met any of you. That said, this is your chance. Overshare ahead. Abort mission. Code Red. I'm going to talk about pee again.

I've had early-waking insomnia most nights this week (makes the thirteen hour workdays a real picnic), and normally I just enjoy a routine of thrashing and thinking murderous thoughts. The other night, as I punctuated my thrashing with drinks of water, email checking (more people should email me from 2:00-7:00 a.m.; they would get timely responses), and making pitiful noises of misery, I got notice that it was my favorite time, vomiting bile time! So I hiked it to the bathroom to give it my best.

As I don't anticipate my continence improving over the next months (or, who am I kidding, years), I have begun keeping a bowl beside the toilet so that when my heaves become strong enough to completely overwhelm my urinary sphincters I am prepared. I have found the sound of full-blown peeing on the floor is shocking enough to interrupt even the most violent vomit, so the bowl has been helpful. Vomiting half-way is worse than not vomiting at all.

Or something.

Still reading?

Back to the other night. So, long story short, I threw up like a champ and peed in my bowl, and finished feeling somewhat relieved but also horrified and a bit disgusted. Keeping a bowl beside the toilet, you must admit, is a pretty significant admission of defeat.

I brushed my teeth in hopes of still having a few to chew with at the end of the pregnancy, and decided that, as it had been four days since my last, I might feel better if I took a shower. I have been using a non-toxic tea tree soap lately; I love the tingle. As I warmed up, sudsed my ever more voluminous hair, and worked up a nice, cooling lather, I peeked my eyes open to discover I was sharing the shower with a spider about the size of a nickel. Maybe even a quarter.

Problem-solving in these types of situations is not naturally one of my strong suits. Compound my innate deficit with a pregnant brain and chronic insomnia and you have a person barely capable of walking straight; spider removal is a goal impossibly out of range.

So there I was, shampoo running into my eyes, tea tree tingle turning to injurious burn, without a brain in my head or a shred of dignity in my heart. I considered my options. Finish quickly and hope for the best? Emerge from the shower, dripping and frothy, to obtain...what? Toilet paper? Too flimsy for this task, especially once the toilet paper is soaked wet. As I pondered and burned, eyes transfixed on my enemy, it began to do some kind of spider dance that nearly put me over the top. How do you know which spiders will kill you? Which spiders will leap onto your naked self? Are spiders attracted to tea tree oil?

Finally, devastated by the morning's events and out of energy for my obviously incompetent attempts at thinking, I simply began shouting for rescue. In retrospect, a woman eighteen weeks pregnant should probably use discretion when shouting "Help!!" from the bathroom at five a.m. Her spouse may think there is an actual emergency, not merely a tiny enemy invader. A tiny enemy invader with no central nervous system.

"Help!!"

And there he was, in a flash. The poor man looked so confused. He took a shampoo bottle, executed our arachnid friend with a few quick taps, guided it down the drain, simply stated, "Well, I'm awake", and returned to the bedroom.

I don't love being a pregnant spouse, but having a pregnant spouse is no bowl of cherries. They pee on the floor, wake you up for no reason at all, and then they tell the whole Internet about it.