Funny, She Doesn't Look Pregnant!

So one of these books says that one of the strangest parts of early pregnancy is that you Feel totally pregnant but when people look at you they only see a slightly heavy chick. I go to experience what that feels like fully at the most unexpected of places: The New York City Baby Show!

Yes, we may be early in the process of researching strollers and car seats, but considering how Chronically slow and procrastinatory my husband and I are, getting a jump on things seems prudent. So, last week - as I was ending Week 12 of the Baby Countdown - we trudged in torrential downpour style rain to check things out.

Now I am one of those women who didn't believe pregnancy brain exists and thought that getting pregnant probably wouldn't change much in my daily life, other than requiring me to eat better than I have in a decade. However, since finding out I'm pregnant at about five weeks, I've been sick to my stomach every day until a few days ago. I feel bloated and crampy and Exhausted like those miners in the Powaqqatsi documentary - you know, people forced to work the mines that go two miles into the earth and carry out baskets of mud on their heads to be sifted for precious metals. Yes, I feel that exhausted. And i'm a distance runner.

So strolling up to the Stem Cord Blood reserve table - my husband and I are still hazy on what that's all about other than seeming like people who perhaps want to do something as odd as folks who eat their placenta after pushing it out their chocha. But I digress.

After telling them I was expecting in November, the woman says, "You don't look pregnant." Now, was this supposed to be a compliment to super excited soon to be parents? To tell the woman she doesn't even look pregnant? And by the way, I was wearing a hippie loose flowy top over a tank top - so of course with extra fabric, how might you tell?!!

All I know is that if you're trying to sell me something that you offer "discount coupons" for $500 off, then you should probably consider your comments.

Sigh. You know, living my whole life as a woman of color and no one believing I was capable of very much, I at least thought that being pregnant would be different. But then, people keep being surprised that my husband and I are married - he's White and I'm Black - especially since i'm pregnant. What the hell is up with that??

Pregnancy (n): the state of being hormonally incapable of dealing with nonsense, but being forced to do so anyway.

Dating Or Having a Baby?

As I stretched down in the shower to shave by bikini line, all of my leg, including the backs of my thighs for the second time in a month, and then got out to slather on the rich organic Shea Moisture Lavender lotion all over my body to ensure no ashy patches of skin were visible (especially below the waist) I had a enlightening realization - I haven't had to be this attentive to the appearance of my vaginal region since my husband and I were dating!

Welcome to Pregnancy!!

What does it mean to be Pregnant? There will be a definition each entry, but for now, well:

1) Pregnancy (v): To be constantly preparing for strangers or near strangers to observe your most private and least exposed parts in careful detail.

Going to the OBGYN used to be a yearly or bi-yearly embarrassment. Yes, I had a lovely provider who, although working out of the Princeton Health Center  and probably spent most of her time tending to undergraduate cases of the clap, was wonderful for the married old lady graduate students who adored her. Her exams were quick efficient and tidy, she was helpful and solicitous. Then she moved to the Philippines and I got pregnant and now its Welcome To The Show Everybody!

I mean, is this how high-priced call girls feel? The constant need to be groomed and tidy for whoever may be getting a gander at your goose that day? Its not like I'm a Sasquatch or anything. And thanks to heavy doses of native american genes mixed into the ole' Black American Pot that makes up my familial gene pool, I am pretty nigh hairless anyway. But I'm not overly obsessed with how my garden looks if you get my drift - I am ok with the Mint overrunning the plant beds since no harm is really done. But now I have returned to that Dating Level Maintenance, where you have to make sure he doesn't know that actually you grow hair in all kind a weird places that freakin' Schick Shaver commercials pretend no one should. Its exhausting.

I found the OBGYN who is to deliver my baby, Dr. Duperval, through friends who adore her, and she is great! No nonsense but attentive, listens carefully but isn't likely to freak you out unnecessarily. But is there anyone out there than me to share the weirdness of that first time: throwing up your feet in the stirrups for someone you've met 20 minutes before?? And each time a different nurse, all of them nice, and my mom is a nurse, so I'm accustomed to certain levels of invasive behavior in the interests of well-being. But Come On.

And the thing is, since I want whatever will make the baby the most happy and healthy and cushy, I can't even care. I'm like, stick whatever you need to in there, probe and poke where you must, just give me a happy rugrat please. Of course that means that now, when my breathing capacity has been reduced by baby, I also have to bend and stretch careful not to cut my leg open while I prep my legs and chocha like a display case at Bloomingdales.

And then there's the time when I obviously miss a patch - hair so fine/scarce sometimes hard to see with fogged up glasses covered in water. At least if there is any judgement going on, everyone has the decency to keep it to themselves. I try to console myself that some woman out there must refuse to tend her display case at all - maybe I can be the Bloomies to her Sears?