Saturday, February 4, 2017

How to make me feel bad

I haven't written too much lately due to being busy and not having a whole lot to say health-wise. Which is a good thing. No news is good news. However, something keeps happening to me that I'd like to address. Well-meaning people keep asking me if I'm pregnant. Let me clear that up for you: NO. This does make me feel bad, but not in the obvious way. I only feel a little self-conscious when I'm asked. I mostly feel bad that the questioner obviously feels TERRIBLE about asking. It's even worse when it's an excited: "Are you expecting?!" Like, they're ready to be super happy for me. When I say "No," their embarrassment at their social faux-pas makes me feel bad. 

How often does this happen? Often enough, mostly in the past 6 months. This past fall, an expectant mother at the hotel pool asked me, "Do you know what you're having?" To avoid making her feel bad, I just said, "Nope." And left it at that. A fellow board member asked, "When's the baby due?" and when I said, "I'm not pregnant," he felt so bad that he felt the need to apologize every single time he saw me after that day back in October. I remember it was October because he even apologized when I took my kids to his house on Halloween for trick-or-treating. I've had students ask, parents of students ask, and a stranger or two.

To what do I attribute my seemingly sudden acquisition of a gut? Starbucks. Seriously, Starbucks. I eased into middle-aged-but-pregnant-looking by gaining 15 lbs, mostly in my stomach, apparently. The facts that I've had both a twin pregnancy and one of the most serious abdominal surgeries a person can have don't help, of course, but it's mostly my former addiction to Starbucks and loss of strength. Diastasis Recti and Whipple surgery don't help, but I fully acknowledge I could make myself less pregnant looking. I am trying. Until then, I'll have to come to peace that sometimes I'm just going to feel bad about people feeling bad. Thanks for listening, and if you've read this, please don't ask me if I'm expecting. I'M NOT.


2 comments:

  1. I resent the entire city of Florence because, while visiting, I asked a woman if I could pet her dog. She said no, he had something on him that would be bad for my baby, and she patted her stomach. I was not pregnant. Ugh. Also, what was the deal with her dog that pregnant women couldn't pet it??

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    1. That's a good story, but so frustrating! I pet my dog all of the time when I was actually pregnant.

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