Keep It To Yourself

OK, so here it is....I'm just gonna come right out and ask. Why do strangers feel the need to come and touch my belly? or unload their stories of child bearing on you? or better yet, tell you what you're having ? OK, not all total stangers, but people I am by no means close to. People like co-workers and clients, ok, and the ramdom slaes girl at the mall. When people see that you are preggo does that give people the green light to invade your personal space and impose thier "knowledge" of pregnancy on you?

Now, I really don't mind when my friends ask to touch my belly when the baby moves, I'm happy that they are happy for me and want to share in my joy or tells me about their expiriances of child birth, since they have had childerne within the last 3-5 years or so. Plus, they are my friends, I actually like them and respect their thoughts and opinions. It's poeple who were last pregnent 30 some-odd years ago or never at all who annoy me. Medical practices have come a long way thank you, and when they give me a shocked look when they find out I've cut out caffeine from my diet or opt not to wear a moo-moo when I'm at home accompanied with the comment "when I was pregnant this is what we did" That irritates me most of all; considering the fact that last time she gave birth was almost 30 years ago.

Take for example the other day, I was at the office going about my business when a co-worker came up to me and started baby talking to my belly. I looked at her like she had 2 heads, "Um...what are you doing?" I had asked. "You know he can hear you when you talk to it" she said; I thought to myself....I know the baby can hear me when I talk to it, but why is my baby hearing you talk to it? and how wonderful of you to automatically assign it a gender without me telling you. You see, I like to separate my work life with my private life as much as possible, so I didn't tell anyone I work with what the gender is or what the name will be. These people don't even make it on my Christmas card list so why would I share this information with them. But back to my point. Completely out of nowhere she gets into my personal space and starts to baby talk to my belly saying what a cute little baby boy my baby is and all that. I'm not talking from a distance. I mean face to belly people!

I have also had clients come into my office and give me thier "thoughts" on my pregnancy. Comments like "I think it's a boy because your belly is low" hmmm....ever think it's because I'm 35 weeks pregnent and ready to give birth in less then a month? Of course not. My favorite reason for why I'm having a boy is because I haven't gained a lot of weight....WTF?! The fact that I've been eating healthier has nothing to do with it I guess. I didn't know there were so many medical experts walking amongst us. The best is when I was shopping with DH and the sales girl asked me when I was due. At the time I said I was 6months along. She gave me this look like "What? really" and then proceeded to ask "are you having twins?" WTF? who says that to someone? What I really wanted to say was "no, I'm just fat and pregnant, whats your excuse?" but I didn't... I just smiled and said no.

Now, I understand this is just people being happy for me, and women (older women) tend share all their opinions with everyone. But really touching me without my consent, judging me for my choices in food and dress, assigning my baby a gender and invading my personal space just rubs me the wrong way at times. Am I being too sensitive and hormonal here or are these people deserving of my signature "WTF" face?

Boy or Girl?

Early on DH and I agreed, boy or girl we would turn our office into a baby room. Why? well it was a straight bee line from our bedroom and it was really the only room we ever really got around to painting since moving in 4 years ago, yes, we are lazy people. The room was blue with a blue and light blue checkered accent wall. We figured that boy or girl it would be OK. I mean It's not like the baby would mind what colour it's room would be, and wasn't blue known to be a calming colour anyway?

Now, this didn't mean we didn't we didn't want to find out the sex of the baby beforehand. I've never been a fan of surprises and I always felt like it there was a means for me to find out information, well, I was meant to find out the information. The control freak in me usually needs to know all I can about any given situation I'm in. You can imagine how excited both DH and I were when our 20 week ultrasound came up. This is when we get to find out if we were having a boy or a girl! We already had names picked out so we wanted to know. As the tech did her thing she finally got to the point where she asked us if we wanted to know the sex. Of course we did!

wait for it....

wait for it...

we're having a....

...baby!

Looks like our baby is just as stubborn as it's mommy. It just wouldn't move it's legs to show the goods. After 20 minutes of trying to change it's position, no luck; and that was that. It would move it's arms and wave but wouldn't move it's legs. We would just have to wait till our next ultrasound and that was months away. Ugh!

I will admit I was a bit bummed, DH, not so much. He said to me "if you are bummed it means you want it to be one over the other, I don;t care either way". I didn't "care" either, it wasn't like i could change the gender if I wanted to, I just wanted to know if my gut feeling was right, and I wanted to to be able to tell my parents what to expect since they only had grandsons so far. But, the baby had spoken so to speak and no dice. DH was right, ultimately to know that the baby is healthy and developing well is the important thing. Boy or girl it was really no matter, it would just be nice to know.

I will say this though, not knowing has come with its changes and blessings. Challenges because its hard to find nice stuff that is gender neutral. Green and yellow have been difficult colors to shop for and not a lot of the stuff is too cute in my opinion (I know it doesn't really matter, but I'm just saying). I've been opting for browns but it's much harder to find, maybe it reminds expectant parents too much of the mountains of poopey diapers that will be coming their way :) . Blessing, because I have refrained from over shopping on baby outfits and accessories; headbands and tutus for girls and Polo sweaters for boys. Boy or girl the baby will have to settle for what we have. A blue baby room and lots of baby boy hand me downs. That, until we have our last ultrasound that is.