TMI Thursday: The Time I Didn’t Take My Mother’s Advice.

(Note: If you follow me on twitter, you may already know where this is headed…)

(Another note: TMI Thursday is brought to you by LiLu, and if you click here you can read a bunch more of her very own stories, but be warned: if you thought my paptastrophe edition was bad…you ain’t seen nothin’ until you read HER stuff.)

Months and months ago when Joe and I first got engaged, I remember having a phone conversation with my mom during which she told me some really awkward yet completely applicable information about when she was a newlywed.

I won’t divulge any of that information (both for her sake and my own), except for the point in the conversation when she paused and said, “But on a more serious note: Always remember to go pee right after having sex. ALWAYS. Trust me.”

I asked her why and she mentioned something about infections and grossness and just-trust-me-okay, and I swore I would follow her advice.

Then I told Joe this post-sexy-time tip and he made kind of an icky face as if to say, “What a way to kill the mood; ‘Honey, that was really special, but I gotta go pee now so I won’t get all infected and stuff.’”

Thus, I was torn. Or more accurately, my mother’s advice was quickly negated by my fiance’s distaste of its mood-killing aroma. (Little did he know what a REAL mood-killing aroma smelled like… #foreshadowing!)

So, we got married. And I think for the first month or so, I did end up going pee shortly after sex most of the time, but it was mainly because I needed to, yanno? But in the last several weeks, for whatever reason, the needing-to-pee had not really come up after we did the deed, and I hadn’t thought to deliberately make it happen.

I’m sure you can see where this is going.

…No?

Okay, you asked for it.

About a week and a half ago, I started noticing that my pee smelled really nasty. Like, picture the worst-smelling baby poo you’ve ever been unfortunate enough to witness, add in some extract of asparagus, and finish it off with a pinch of STINK BUG. It’s that gross. I was pretty irked by this new aroma, but I went about my business and just made it a point to get extra-especially clean (not that I wasn’t before, just that it was even MORE intentional now) and hoped the stink would unstink itself.

But then last week, it happened.

I went pee and right as the last few drops dripped into the toilet, I experienced a wave of indescribable pain that was…well, indescribably BAD. It felt a little bit like it does when I’ve been drinking water all day but don’t remember to go pee until my bladder is waaaayyyyy too full, only WORSE. Exponentially worse, people.

I thought my bladder was trying to squeeze through my pee-hole while simultanously my pee-hole was being stabbed repeatedly with an ice pick. Ouch.

So that was disconcerting. (Also made sexy-time sound not so sexy there for a few days…on top of the aforementioned mood-killing aroma.) But even after a couple of days of this excruciating pee-pain, I didn’t think back to my mother’s advice.

UNTIL…

Until Saturday morning, when I went through the whole smelly-pee-followed-by-immense-pain ordeal,  only this time as I went to wipe, I noticed a tiny bit of a reddish tint to my pee. Yep…I peed blood.

Then I started to worry. I WebMD’d my symptoms and discovered that HELLOOOOO? I have a urinary tract infection. (That, or a “foreign object in the vagina” or gonorrhea, of course…)

And THAT’S when I thought back to my mother’s advice those many months ago, and went, “Ohhh…now I get it. Also, OUCH.”

So, yeah. I went to the doctor on Monday and confirmed that it’s a bladder infection, got me some nasty-smelling (but not as nasty as my infected pee) antibiotics, and this thing should be gone before the weekend.

All told, I’ve learned a lot these last couple of weeks. Namely:

• Always take your mother’s advice (at least when it comes to your vagina)… Your husband, though well-intentioned, can’t exactly relate…

and also:

• Sex is sexier when your pee-hole smells pretty.

Oh, and one last little tidbit for your amusement: Last night, Joe and I were getting ready for bed (and by “bed” I mean “sexy time”) and since the sexy time has been a little sparse lately what with my infection and pain and OWW, Joe said, “Ohhh, so THIS is what those pills are for!”

And I said, “Yeah — to make my pee stop stinking so bad!”

And Joe said, “Uh…I meant the OTHER pills…but bwahahahaha!!” And there was much crack-up-age, and then we enjoyed some almost-completely-healed-from-bladder-infection sexy time. Yay!