Off Kilter



I have been meaning to write about a recent adventure for a whole week now.  I had to give it a little time to make sure that it was a funny story to tell and not a tragic one.  Last Thursday was a busy day.  In the morning I picked up one of my clients for a super fun game of bowling.  I was training in the person that will be working while I'm on maternity leave and when I left my house I had a pretty good feeling about how the day was going to go.  I even had my cute pink shoes on.  The problem, I soon realized, was that these cute shoes don't require socks.  Bowling shoes require socks.  I suppose they don't... but gross.  For me, they do.  So that was a minor set back.  Luckily the bowling alley had socks for sale.  So my day was still looking pretty good.

And then it was my turn to bowl.

I have gone bowling more working with my clients than I ever had in my entire life.  I'm still not the best, but I've been pretty proud to at least break 100 almost every time.  So last Thursday I thought "Alright.  Let's break 100 again.  Maybe we can even get into the 120's today!"  I've had a lot of good conversations with the bowling alley staff.  They say that some pregnant women have bowled their best games when they are far along in their pregnancies.  One of my clients tells me that it's not fair because I have extra help.  Clearly with scores in the low 100's people aren't begging me to join their leagues, but it is a vast improvement over hoping to break 50.  Anyway, it was going to be a good day for bowling.  At least that's what I thought.  I grabbed my hot pink ball (the lightest one I can find at the bowling alley... probably made for children) and headed up to the lane.  I'm not exactly sure what happened next... maybe I tried to move to fast, maybe I "stuck" (I don't have a "slide" so I'm not sure that it would be possible for me to "stick").  The next thing I knew, my body was starting to fly down the lane with the ball.  In the process of trying to stop myself from going down the lane, I did a twist, what I imagine looked like cartoon style kicking, and landed on my poor tailbone.  My feet were in the air.  The foot foul buzzer is blaring, as if I don't realize that I crossed the line.  I tried to move, but the lane was so slippery I didn't even have a chance of getting up on my own.  I wasn't exactly sure what to do next.  When I tried to get up, I just slipped back down.  So I laid there. I'm sure it was only seconds, but when you are the clearly pregnant lady who has just fallen on the bowling alley lane, time seems to move pretty slow.  Knowing I couldn't do anything to save myself, I held my arms out and waited for someone to come pull me off of the super wax.  I was thankful that I didn't slide very far down the lane so that my co-worker was actually able to reach my hands and help me up.  The bowling alley staff didn't even know what to say.  They were concerned that I was going to go into labor in the bowling alley.  I told them that they were probably just lucky I didn't pee my pants when I fell.  (I've been reading stories about pregnant women who sneeze and pee their pants, so I can imagine that falling down could also cause this.)  I put in a call to my doctor, just to be safe.  I had an appointment the next morning so they thought that I should be fine.  Thankfully baby didn't seem phased by my big tumble, he was busy moving around shortly after my fall.  I was still pretty worried that I had done some damage, so it was nice to hear his heartbeat the next morning!  My doctor was actually more concerned that my tailbone may be broken.  I'm not sure if it is, but it still hurts.  Really bad.  Apparently a broken tailbone would be a really bad thing to have during labor.  Hopefully it heals before I head to the hospital!

People have been warning me that pregnancy causes balance issues.  I guess I believed that I would experience some things, but I had been feeling pretty steady so far.  Sure there had been a few close calls (one specifically when I was trying to run down my basement stairs wearing heels while running late for something... big surprise, but I'm not leaving the house without a snack!)  Needless to say, I won't be doing any more pregnant bowling.  For the record, I'm not the first pregnant person to fly down the bowling lane.  The staff told me that the other lady dove down the lane with the ball... on her belly(!) and slid all the way past the arrows!  So at least my slide didn't take me down to the pins.

Oh, and the best part?  I won the game.  I don't remember what my score was, but I do know that I broke 100.  Or maybe the best part is my sweet souvenir... bowling socks.