Dear John (and other important updates)

Once upon a time there was an English doctor named John Braxton Hicks.

He was obsessed with women's parts and obstetrics.

In my very scholarly and thorough Wikipedia research, I found out that Hicks was one of the first doctors to deal with bipolar. "Were his patients all manic-depressive and mentally unstable?" you may ask, knowing full well from your own experience that pregnant women are in fact slightly out of sorts.

No, bipolar, in obstetrics world is when the baby is laying sideways when he should be coming to the world head first. Hicks proceeded to insert his big 'ol hand in there and turned the baby. He was the first doctor to master this procedure, but I don't see anywhere in my internet literature on how satisfied those poor laboring women were with his method.



When I first read this (in terror) I immediately called my doctor and said, "I want an epidural now!" and also, "If something called bipolar happens to me, just cut me open, OK?" He agreed, and I said, "I am serious. Don't go turning anything in there with your big 'ol hand."

Hicks was most famous, however, for being the first doctor to describe something women knew for gazillion of years: you can have contractions months before birth.

Women have been telling their doctors and anyone with ears this symptom since the beginning of time and have been regarded as nuts and, in this case, bipolar, but all it took was a man (that never felt it and never would feel it himself) to acknowledge this discomfort and suddenly everyone believe it existed.

The London obstetrics association went insofar as to give this contractions his name: Braxton Hicks.

Why am I so interested in this piece of history? One, because I am having insomnia and have nothing better to do. Two, because I am having those contractions right now.

They feel as if someone is squeezing one part or all of the uterus, raising my heart rate and leaving me slightly out of breath.

(OMG!!! I was typing here and munching on my very early breakfast when I saw a little mouse seating next to me on the couch probably having his breakfast and comfortably paying attention to what I am writing. I screamed bloody murder and threw this very computer a few feet away - it still works. My poor sleepy husband is now moving all the furniture around, looking for the intruder. I think it's time to call a pest control. I am now in another room and can hear my husband joking, saying, "Honey, at least someone is cleaning after the cheerios you leave between the creases of the couch")

Where was I? Oh, yes, my contractions are gone now and who cares, anyway. There is a nasty, yucky thing in my house that likes my breakfast and seems to have an interest in my blog.