So as to ease the discomfort of some of my friends and any potential strangers that may be reading this, I have decided to throw people like me (well, pre-pregnancy me) a bone.
5 Things NOT to Do Around Pregnant Woman
5. Don't Touch My Belly: I can honestly say that there were only 2 people out of the many that have touched me over the last few months that I actually didn't mind. But everyone else, stop touching my stomach. I didn't like it when I wasn't pregnant, I don't like it now. It is also rather cheeky to assume that just because something is sticking out, it's okay to be touched. I mean, no one goes around rubbing women's boobs or butts (at least outside of the club) - why is it okay to rub my expanding uterus?? Please just stop. Plus, it's not like the baby is a circus animal and he's just going to start doing tricks because you've touched my belly. He's his own person - he sleeps, he chills and he doesn't exactly give me advance notice when he plans on vigorously kicking me . . . so more than likely you are not going to feel anything when you touch me. Except maybe my annoyance and a strong desire to get away from you.
4. Don't Feel Compelled to Talk About My Pregnancy: Look, I'm pretty big. You and I both know I am preggers. You don't have to say anything about it. In fact, when it comes to someone like me who is on a first name basis with the folks at Kaiser, I don't especially want to talk about it all the time - I live it. It's around me 24/7. I get absolutely no break from it. In fact, if you'd like to talk about the latest reality TV show or your latest date, I'm all about that.
3. Don't Share Any Pregnancy/Delivery Horror Stories: My level of paranoia is pretty high these days - with reason. So I do not need to hear how your auntie's-best friend's-daughter's-neighbor ended up having triplets when they only saw 1 baby on the ultrasound or how she had 50 hours of labor. Actually nobody wants to hear stories like that so please keep your urban myths to yourself.
2. Don't Provide Any Commentary on the Name of My Unborn Child: OMG, I could really do a whole blog entry on this, because this is my #1 annoyance these days. Look, if I wanted YOUR opinion on a name, I would have asked for it. Jam Rockah has no problem asking others for their opinion. But we spent several MONTHS thinking about what names we like and we chose something that we like and has significance. And frankly YOUR opinion does not matter. In fact if I ask you if you like the name, I'm really just trying to be polite because I don't care if you do and the name I have chosen for MY child has absolutely no relevance in YOUR life. I cannot believe how rude some people are when they issue opinions on name choices. I feel that as long as my name choice does not have an apostrophe or more than one capital letter in it, or does not come from a Disney movie, it's okay. And for the love of all things holy, stop suggesting YOUR name as my baby's name . . . sheesh.
1. Don't Comment that Me or the Baby Look Big: Look, NO ONE wants to hear they're looking as huge as they feel. Okay, maybe some skinny anorexic model is running around talking about how she REVELS in her newfound roundness (bitch). But this is not me and I think I represent about 85% of pregnant women on this issue. So please save your "Wow, that looks like a big baby!" or "You're so much bigger than 7 months . . ." or "You sure you only got one in there?" comments to yourself. They're not funny and you're a jerk. I am most sensitive about this one because in just this week alone, I got these three separate comments. And unless you have OB/GYN after your name, I would say that your observations about my size are pretty asinine.
This is not to say that you can't say or do anything around us . . . I will provide some recommendations on my next entry on what you can do . . .
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