Everyone is so nice to you when you are pregnant. Strangers you’ve never met will start conversations with you and seem to be genuinely interested in your well being, along with everything else that isn’t really their business but because you are pregnant it simply becomes their business. I think people take pregnant women as their right of passage to ask anything they would like to ask, even though they've never met you before. Like, is it a boy or a girl? When are you due? How many other children do you have? How was your first labor? How much weight have you gained? Will you be working or staying at home?
I don't mind answering an occasional personal question from someone I don't know, really. But my very favorite strangers are the ones who simply say: oh you are just so tiny! and, oh you are just so cute! because I'm not "cute" and I'm certainly not "tiny", but I like those people the best anyway. those comments are much better than personal questions, and much more uplifting than oh are you having twins?! or, oh you just look so miserable!
Truthfully, sometimes I forget that I’m pregnant. It’s such a part of me now that I find myself walking the isles at the grocery store or stopping to admire the custom cutting boards at the farmers market, when the only reason I remember that I’m so very pregnant is as I look up and am startled to see people staring at me with silly little smiles on their faces. It always takes me aback a little. Why is everyone smiling at me? Oh crap, do I have a sticky piece of candy stuck to my shirt again? Oh that’s right, it’s because there is a human inside of me and I’m very large and possibly glowing with that lovely pregnancy glow, and that is what makes everyone that looks at me smile.
So I smile back at everyone. All day I smile at everyone because everyone smiles at me. I smile until my cheeks hurt. And smiling is also a reminder to myself that, oh yes I’m pregnant! because when I get pregnant my face gets pregnant too. When my nine month pregnant face smiles, I can practically feel my cheeks pressing against my ear lobes. So sometimes, when my cheeks are especially sore from all of the return-smiling, I avoid eye contact instead.
That’s #2 on my list of things I’m most excited to get back once I’m not pregnant anymore: my skinny face. #1 is my small boobs, if you must know.
Another thing that occurs to me often lately is how bothersome the phrase “you are going to pop soon!” is. It’s another comment from those well-intentioned strangers who determine that a large pregnant belly makes your life an open book. And I suppose it only bothers me a little, and only because, well, I’m not a balloon. I’m not going to pop. I’m actually going to be a pushing a very large object out of a much smaller object. It's going to be pretty miserable and pretty miraculous and pretty scary and pretty amazing, and much much more entailed than just... "popping".
When we were first pregnant, Jace would laugh in our faces when we would talk about the baby in my tummy. He was sure we were joking. But now days the tables have turned significantly. He talks about "baby beck" often, about how baby beck will be sleeping in his old nursery and how he will be glad to share his monster trucks with him. He often asks me, "when is baby beck come outta yow tummy mom?" and when I tell him soon, he says "oh, yes! soon!" and it melts me a little bit.
And this just in: my feet swell. Who knew that was possible? I have long, narrow feet that have never been swollen a day in my life and now by the end of every hot day they are swollen and tingling and propped up in front of me with a bag of ice on my toes.
It's just an adventure, this pregnancy gig.
I had a dream about him the other night. In the dream he had a head full of blonde hair, and he was so beautiful. I was so proud to have made something so beautiful. I watched Dan holding our swaddled baby boy in his arms, and I was so baffled because he had come so fast that I hardly remembered having him. He was just there, sleeping away with that head of hair and we were so over the moon and proud.
I woke up from that dream aching to hold Beck in my arms, so I looked down at my belly and told him that he could come any day now. I told him that even though we still have a few touches left on the nursery, and even though I haven't packed a hospital bag yet, well he could feel free to come anyway. I would love to meet him in the flesh now. And in response he kicked and wiggled a bit, his little bum bulging the left side of my belly and his head pressing firmly on my bladder as he does, and he reassured me that he's just fine and very comfortable baking away in my warm uterus. He's not in a hurry, this one. I can sense it.
I have a love/hate relationship with pregnancy questions. I loved having strangers come up to me and ask me how I was doing and everything. But I hated when people asked me about breast feeding. I am usually an open book, but come on! That is SO personal! My boobs my business ya know?! Anyway, I am so excited for you. Can't wait to see the little guy! Good luck in the last few weeks- those were the hardest for me- I just wanted to hold him so bad I ached inside.
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