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It's time for a vote!

Choose your picks for the a)Most Horrifying Pregnancy Story and the b) funniest pregnancy story and put your vote in the comments of this post. To vote you must have either a registered Blogger account or leave a valid e-mail address. I have numbered the finalists' stories, to make it easier for you to leave your selections.

Voting will take place all day Thursday, until my um, bedtime (let's say around 10pm, CST), at which time I'll turn off the comments. I'll announce the winners on Friday morning.

Each winner will receive her own cool blog button, made by MommaK, her choice of a 25-card stationery set from Lauren Goessling Designs, and a blog/site/e-store makeover from reader Shaz. Thanks, ladies!

And now, without further adieu, the finalists:

1. During my third pregnancy I had an ongoing yeast infection for the entire third trimester.
The only thing that made it manageable was to eat three cartons of yogurt a day. The doctor thought that as long as I was in a "holding pattern" she didn't want to medicate me.
Good days, I tell you... -Gretchen

2. Well...I discovered I suffer from a VERY rare thing called ICP (Intrahepatic Cholestasis of Pregnancy, occurs in 0.5% of pregnancies). Basically, bile doesn't get secreted from the liver and backs up which results in lots of crazy things, but mainly itchy skin in the 3rd Trimester. And not just skin itching from streaching. ALL your skin itching so so SO bad with nothing that works to stop it. I still have scars on my feet from where I scratched them in my sleep and they'd start bleeding. -Tina

3. I couldn't go without peeing every 15 minutes. And if I did, I wet myself a little. And I got a horrid chafing rash from pantyhose, so I walked with even more of a waddle than normal, and then got a horrid yeast infection. And I wore the pantyhose because I was told it would help with the awful swelling in my legs. -Interstellar Lass

4. I don't even need to have smelled a particular smell before: just imagining what it might smell like is enough to make me gag hard enough to not only pee my pants and/or throw up. -Mamaloo

5. I threw up in the grocery store and probably scared a little boy into being permanently freaked out by pregnant women (projectile vomit. Always a crowd pleaser.) -Woman with Kids

6. Three weeks before giving birth to my second child, I got a terrible sunburn on my shins at the beach. The agony of the sunburn was compounded by the pregnancy-induced swelling of my legs and feet. I seriously felt like my legs had been doused in lighter fluid and set aflame.
A happy camper, I was not. -Kelly

7. A delivery doctor... dropped my baby on his head. The baby was not even ten seconds old. Baby comes out, baby gets dropped. course it did make for a cool birth video. -Bluepaintred

8. Anyway, my horror story - bulging blue grape like veins coming out of my, my well, my vagina! Hideous. I did like you and freaked, but the Midwife said "oh, that's normal". Seems like anything is "normal" with pregnancy. They did go away when baby was born. I called it my "bearded clam stuffed with grapes" condition. Hubby was horrified. -Vic

9. During my second pregnancy, at week 20 my baby was diagnosed with Trisomy 18, a rare and most often life-threatening type of dna-disease and I was told to come to the hospital in order to terminate the pregnancy (without actually asking me, but that is a different story). On the day, I checked into this hospital, the doctor took a look at my papers and told me to do a second round of examination, just to "make sure" the baby is indeed with Trisomy 18. Guess what? According to their data, he concluded that it is most likely that the baby should be perfectly healthy. And indeed after being very nervous for the rest of my pregnancy, I delived a perfectly healthy girl! -WeinKata

10. My OB/GYN delivered her in the morning. Lost his medical license that afternoon because of negligence. Not me, but many others. -Lisa

11. I was 17. -Annie

12. My left leg would suddenly go totally numb and give out.. no particular reason. Id be walking or just standing still and suddenly I was on the floor. It happend almost every day. It was like I was some wierd push button donkey. -Michele

13. I was sitting on the pot in my third trimester with this big old uterus resting on my upper thighs. I saw a bit of lint or something on the floor and reached down to pick it up.
*POP* ScReAM!!!!
I broke my zyphoid process....for freakin'real. It is that little wiggly, dangly portion at the end of your sternum, at the bottom of your rib cage...the part of the body that can be broken during CPR if not careful. However, NO ONE warned me you can break your own if you have a really large uterus and you pound it into the top of your equally large late-pregnancy fat thighs while taking a constipated dump!
I felt like I had been stabbed and could not straighten up. So, I sat there on the pot, barely able to reach around to give a courtesy flush before screaming for the hubs to come rescue me.
I told my doc about it who totally blew me off with "you can't break those like that!" (Duh, I am a nurse and I KNOW you can...and I DID!)
Fast forward to delivery and skipping the whole horror that was my labor. When the kid with the watermelon sized head was finally out, the doc looks over my blue paper draped knees and sees my zyphoid process pointing all wonky toward my right leg. He said, "Hum, I guess maybe you DID break it after all."
Then he reached up and POPPED that sucker back into place! If I could have gotten my fat legs off those stirrups, he would have gotten a round house kick to the head he would never have forgotten!
Annnnnd, I had to suffer the embarassment of the snickers and whispers from almost the enire hospital staff (I was an ER/OR nurse there at the time) when they HAD to come see my self-inflicted, almost-episiotomy.
It happened like this:
I roll my fat blob self out of a water bed (??!!) on the morning of delivery with the tremendous urge to pee YET AGAIN..only to discover it was my water breaking...so I take a shower to get all April fresh or whatever...step out to dry myself off, swipe "down there" as best I could...what with a 400 pound baby inside me and a broken zyphoid process and all. I feel a searing pain...and draw back a bloody towel and figure I had just given birth but can't find the baby.
Nah, it seems I had given an extra vigorous drying to "sensitive tissues" with a towel that an errant sewing needle had nested into during the wash....and I ripped that sucker right thru the you-know-what!
Yeah, that one was good for a few Nurse Lounge laughs.
But I got revenge on all of them cause I had diarrhea with every labor pain and they had to take care of that. So there. -Nancy

14. My husband and I were living in Peru when I got pregnant. We decided to just have the baby down there because, after all, people have babies everyday in Peru, right? It was almost 15 years ago, but I will never forget it.
At that time, Peru was dominated by a great deal of terrorism. The terrorists blew things up all the time and tried to control the city. They would announce certain calendar dates and say that anyone on the streets was fair game. So often, the police would put up road blocks on these days. I was close to my due date and they announced another day. I was certain that I would go into labor and not be able to get to the hospital, or worse yet, my doctor who was the only doctor in Lima that I trusted would not be able to get there. So, I convinced my doctor to induce me. Yes, I was induced because of terrorist activity. Besides this, there was an earthquake while I was in the hospital and the terrorist bombed some of the utility services, leaving me without water to shower for 3 days after giving birth. Didn't feel that pretty for a while. --The Everyday Mom

15. I'm a cyclist, and like runners, we have naturally, ahem, limber pelvic bones.
Which explains how I got knocked up three weeks after a knee surgery that left me in a thigh to ankle cast.
Aaaanyhow, the downer is that when I hit mid-second trimester where the pelvis starts to open up a bit, my hip and pelvic bones popped in and out of place with every, single step I took for 12 weeks. I spent the last 8 on crutches.
Step, pop, grind, pulled-muscle feeling in my hip and crotch, then pop again. Repeat for next step. And then repeat for each step for 12 weeks. -Mir

16. I sleepwalk. Only during pregnancy though. The one I still get laughed at for was the one where I was convinced that an ice cream truck had gone down our street with it's music blaring at 4 am. With about 5 patrol cars chasing after it, sirens blaring. I even heard my husband talking to his boss about it on the phone in the living room. When I finally got up to see what was going on, the house was completely dark and quiet. My husband asked me what I was doing and when I asked what happened to the ice cream truck and the police? I thought he'd have me comitted. -Mrs. X

17. I was home from work one afternoon for lunch just relaxing on the couch with my feet up. Suddenly my crotch was completely soaked. Thinking crap, my water just broke, I immediately called my doctor as I was not due for another two weeks. She has me come to her office to check me and give me orders to take to the hospital. I get to the doctor and she does this nifty little test that confirms that NO my water did not break, the baby must have just kicked my bladder and I peed on myself. It was fun having to explain that to everyone. -Jennifer

18. We stayed in the hospital the requisite 24 hours, as this was during the drive-thru labor days, and then got tossed. But my cardiologist and OB didn't want to release me because I wasn't doing too well. My insurance refused to pay for one more night, and wanted me to send A home alone. Without me. Um... nope, not gonna happen. My OB ended up paying for an extra night for me out of her own pocket. What a peach she was. They sent B home a few days later at exactly 4 lbs. She was so small that nobody wanted to hold her. It was ridiculous, but that was the policy in those days. It has since changed to 5 lbs. She had also had a brain bleed and was jaundiced. B was too small and weak to nurse, and the nightmare continued. It was really disasterous to have her come home that early and she's still reaping the consequences of terrible insurance and bad hospital policy. -Margalit

19. I'm one of those people who didn't know she was pregnant until she got to the hospital. I went to prom 3 days before she was born in a size 8 dress. First, I went into labor on the bus. My boyfriend took me home and when my mom got there, he left for his Boy Scout meeting. (go ahead, laugh I know you want to ). We get to the hospital and they ask if I might be pregnant, and since I hadn't had my period in a while, I said I guess. So, they slap a fetal monitor on my and you guessed it, a heartbeat. Then came the words "Emergency C-section". When I wake up I have a 3 pound 12 ounce beautiful little girl. She is 3 weeks overdue and fully developed just underweight. I found out I have a small wall in my uterus that kept her to one side and only allowed her to grow so much. I also had toxima and was extremely anemic. I had to have a blood transfusion and magnesium IV, and almost died twice once when I was in labor and once when my Blood pressure sky rocketed because of the toxima. I got to go home 6 days later. My daughter is an extremely intelligent 8 year old and perfectly happy. -MGal

20. When my first son was 23 weeks along we had an ultrasound and his heartbeat dropped to 20 bpm during the time that we were doing the ultrasound. Low low low. It stayed there for a little bit, and then rose back up slowly. Immediately I was put on HIGH RISK alert and the OB told me that she wanted to give me a steroid shot in case of emergency cesarean (AT 24 WEEKS!) because my uterus didn't seem to be a safe place for my baby. I had to come in every other day for monitoring and I lived an hour away. The nurses would just leave me in the room with the monitor, as I had to chase the little fish baby around my uterus with the monitor thingy, they're so small then, they are hard to get. I felt like my baby's life depended on me getting a good reading, so it was a lot of pressure for a first time mommy.
Finally, after three weeks of this, the OB decided to send me down to UCSF so that the baby could have an echocardiagram, in utero. The first thing the specialist told me was that she saw this sort of thing once a week! She said the technicians push down too hard with their instruments on the little squishy baby and it cuts off the baby's circulation.
They almost gave me a c-section at 24 weeks (only 50% chance of survival) because the technician had cut off my perfectly healthy baby boy's circulation.
I went back to the OB with that information and she said, "Well, I think we could *consider* taking the high risk label off of this pregnancy.
I switched hospitals. -Rae

21. During pregnancy I develop a immune reaction clotting process. I need twice daily blood thinners in the behind. Already not fun. At 22 weeks I also got cholestasis(the devil itch). I spent 10 weeks in hospital, away from my then 18 month old.
At 34 weeks I was induced, I suffered a 23 hr 50 min drug-free(not by choice) labour, to give birth to a yellow baby-bird like creature. She shared my room for two weeks with her blue strobe-like biliblanket. She's now 6, bright and beautiful. -Lili

22. I had pre eclampsia, gestational diabetes, pancreatitis and gall stones!!! -Toni

23. Um, my liver failed. Do I win? -Lena

24. I actually got kidney stones during my second trimester. Sorry guys, pushing a baby out is much harder than pushing those little suckers out! -Hissyfitz

25. During my 3rd trimester with my third baby I had my gall bladder go out on me. I was dealing with gall bladder attacks that I thought was heart attacks to start with. So till she was born I had attacks about every other day and they did a c-section because I was wiped out! 6 months later I got it removed. It took so long because it was bedly infected and they had to wait. Just to let you know, nursing at the same time you have a gall bladder attack is the most horrific thing. -keltybug

26. I got pregnant with twins on our 7th IVF. I started bleeding at 5 weeks. They never could figure out why, but every time I was sent to the hospital and was told I was losing the pregnancy. This went on weekly until week 14. At week 16 we were in for our amnio when I was told that I was in labor, losing both babies, and needed a cerclage ASAP. I was nearly 3cm dialated and fully effaced at this point. I was put into the hospital that same day and was to receive a rescue cerclage. During the spinal they kept missing and hitting a nerve instead. It took 8 sticks into my spine to get the thing done. At that time, I was put on strict bedrest. I could shower twice a week and go to the doctor. Otherwise I had to lay flat on my back. 3 weeks before my daughters were born, my best friend of 35 years died of breast cancer. I couldn't travel for the funeral. I went into labor at 34 weeks, 5 days. I was 8 cm dialated when my blood pressure bottomed out and the babies heart rates dropped to the low 30's. I lost consciousness and woke up as they were cutting me for the c-section. I also had gestational diabetes... and lost my gall bladder because of my pregnancy. -BSumner

27. I had kidney stones and Gestational diabetes. I was in the hospital for a month away from my 1 year old. Then when I went to deliver by c-section they had to put me to sleep. -Amanda

28. With my third, I had a uterine infection which made every move I made excruciatingly painful. Even breathing brought me to tears. After admiting me to the hospital, they hooked me and my unborn daughter up to 10 different iv's/ monitors/ oxygen/ and who knows what else. She came out when I coughed, the doctor missed it, and the nurse was screaming for him to "get the hell in here... this baby is out!". My little girl was in the NICU for 5 days hooked up to tubes and wires. She acquired the infection that I had and I was sent home. Leaving her at the hospital was worse than the pain of getting her here. -Picklemomof4

29. At 35 weeks, we discovered the baby was growing too big, too fast. No I did not have gestational diabetes. At 38 weeks, we induced. The epidural was put in place. And did not work. The anesthesologist did not believe me. My OB came in and judging from the finger nail marks in her hand, she did believe me. She asked the lady (let's call her B for bitch) to do the epidural again. B refused, and said "it will just take a little bit to work." So I delivered a 10 lb 3 oz baby with no pain med. I pushed her out when I was only at 8 cm dialated so my cervix prolapsed. My OB had to hold the cervix open. Good times. -CPA Mom

30. What I thought would be a routine appointment turned into a nightmare. Dr. XXX called me into the exam room for my appointment, he did the normal stuff, blood pressure, listen to my heart, and then said he was concerned with tightness in my belly and some discharge. He performed an exam and said I would be admitted immediately to the hospital. He said I was fully effaced, dilated to 3 centimeters and baby was breech. I was having contractions and he could feel the feet of our baby. After being admitted, more ultra sounds were performed. The doctor said he was sending a minister up to see us. He said we were having a boy and probably our son would be born that evening and the chances of survival were slim due to his size (11 oz.). I remember the shock of all this news. It all happed so fast. Being admitted and then the start of the evil drug, magnesium sulfate. I was swollen from head to toe from this drug. My eyes swelled shut, my fingers were the size of bananas, and my face the size of an over inflated balloon. My skin was as red as tomatoes and hot. My husband said it was so hot to the touch that it felt like a severe sunburn. My hospital bed was tipped to try and drop the baby back into me. I had no clue as to what day it was or how many days had passed. After I had been in for 4 days, completely unaware of anything my contractions had stopped.
I gave my son 41 more days in utero. Each passing day was a blessing giving him one more day to grow. Our son was born at 27 weeks weighing 3 lbs. -Minnesota Mom

31. My labor was progressing very slowly, so much so that my epidural was wearing off. They started to re-dose and I started having shooting pains up my spine. They might as well have been shooting acid into my body. The pain was worse than any labor pain I ever experienced and it never went away. I laid in the fetal position, grasping the rail of the bed because now I could also very much feeling the labor pains, since they couldn't give me the full dose -- labor pains, plus shooting back pain, not my idea of a good time. When it was time to push, I was so exhausted and my back pains kept me from being able to sit up. I literally didn't have it in me to push.
13 hours of labor turns into a C-section... and the story continues. The regional anesthetic didn't take. They kept poking me with what felt like a thumb tack, asking if I could feel it. Yes... I can feel it. "Do you feel it less here?" Yes... but I still FEEL it... please don't cut me open yet! I had to be put under, hubbz couldn't be in the OR and I slept through The Boy's first hour and a half of life. -Jill

Good luck, everyone!