Oh, right, the bladder thing..... (maybe in case anyone has to do it at some point.)
On a normal day I try to get through my 1L bottle of water. Some days are easier than others, but for a while now I've managed to make sure I get through at least that. I know it might be better (?) to have more but I'm working with what I can manage now, you know?
So I always have my Nalgene with me (recently I got new ones just in case the old ones were getting worn out and stuff) and so on Friday morning I just made sure I was thinking extra about getting through it.
My appointment was in the afternoon and so I had a note to myself to stop peeing an hour before the appointment. I figured this would be enough time to have a full bladder....?
But seven minutes AFTER that "one hour before" time I really really had to go and knew I wouldn't make it to the appointment so I went pee, and then felt like I had peed illegally! And I did worry a little that I'd screwed things up but it's not like I hadn't been drinking all morning and I didn't stop drinking at that point either.
By this time I'd gotten through my litre and was working on "bonus" water.
But I was still a little worried about that last pee.
But as I got closer to the time I was getting ready to leave, my bladder was NOT empty.
On the drive to the place (maybe 15 minutes away?) I started to get a little concerned. Was my bladder too full? Was this going to be rough? Oh no, what if they were late? UH OH!
But I wasn't desperate, just, more uncomfortable than I like to be, especially when driving/leaving the house!
When I arrived, they asked if my bladder was full and I was like YES I'M A LITTLE WORRIED and she just smiled and said "hold it" (I mean I bet 90% of people there for a bladder ultrasound say something similar right?) and so I sat and waited and tried not to think about it, but the irony is that when you're trying not to think about something it can almost be worse?
Thankfully the technician was right on time and I just had to kind of focus on being ok while she was ultrasounding and it wasn't too awful and she did say "your bladder is very full" so I feel like I did a good job and my "illegal pee" wasn't illegal after all! PHEW!
So yeah, all this to say that you don't have to (not that I'm a doctor) be full to bursting (I read online that you can actually apparently be "too full"?) just, I'd say "uncomfortably full" or more full than you'd like to be... if that makes sense.
And now that I've written an entire post about peeing and not peeing I'll go feel weird about having talked about it at all. YAY BODIES! WE ALL HAVE EM!