A Public Event

I went into this process thinking that pregnancy was a pretty private affair. You know, a little thing I share with this person growing inside me and that Coleman shares with both of us. Yes, your friends and family are happy for you and love you enough to be as involved as possible, but I still consider that the private sphere.

However, as I'm learning, a pregnant woman's body is seen as a public spectacle, or at least a communal event. I had heard Allison talk about people coming up to her at the hardware store and telling her the sex of her unborn child based on how she was "carrying," but I always kind of assumed that was just because it was Texas, and we all know how Texans pride themselves on bigness (even big bellies!).

I'm finding, though, that even here in the midwest, people interact with you in ways they never would if you weren't sporting a bulging midsection. People make comments about you within earshot. They strike up conversations and stare openly at your belly. And many people feel pretty free to reach out and touch my belly, or at least they touch first and then remember to ask permission. (I know you're dying inside, Allison.) The saleswoman ringing us up at Macy's did on Saturday, in fact. Before I was ever pregnant, I thought I would be all feminist about it and insist that a woman's body is not a public thing, but I'm learning to accept this communal attitude the more I experience it.


Does 'communal' make sense? I mean that in the sense of the women talking to me at the coffee shop or the little old man at the Wawa I told you about...or the people touching the belly...

...or the barrage of attention I received while I was running errands last Sunday. I'm telling you, all of these things happened within half an hour or 45 minutes of each other.

As I was walking into the shopping center where our Trader Joe's is, two women were walking out with children and one turned to the other (right next to me), and said very audibly, "Everybody's pregnant, aren't they?!"

Then, as I was leaving through those same automatic doors, a man coming in at the same time stepped aside as I exited and said, "Congratulations!" I was a little startled, but I thanked him.

I had barely walked the 20 or 30 feet to my car (yes, I did have rock star parking that day), and a middle-aged man calls out his open car window as he pulls into the empty space adjacent to mine, "Mama's gonna have a baby!" "That's right," said I, quite amused. "Congratulations!" he replied.

Then, the female clerk at the Speedway - where I stopped for a fountain drink detour on my 5 minute trip home - struck up a conversation with me as well. "When are you due?" "What are you having?" (as I told you before, I'm always tempted to say, "A baby.") She then told me all about how she had a boy first and how her mother tried to convince her that she was having a girl up to the day she delivered.

Maybe it's just that it's spring and people are coming back to life and feeling friendly, but I do think it has something to do with the social aspect of pregnancy and how people who may not have much else to bring them together as a real community still see this as a communal event.

It doesn't bother me at all, and mostly I just like to observe the effect it has on people. I'm happy to be able to build community, even if it's only for these short months.

And just so everyone knows, friends and family have a free pass and may touch my belly at any time without asking permission first. :o) In fact, if something entertaining is happening in there, I may just grab your hand and make you! And anyone else who asks permission first will almost certainly obtain it.


**In light of the guy calling out from his car window at Trader Joe's last weekend, you can imagine how horrified I was when, as Coleman and I were walking to the car this weekend, I heard a man call out his window, "Man, that's one big woman!" I walked around the back of the car, equal parts aghast and livid, to see what miserable wretch of a human being would say something like that to a pregnant woman. Coleman, on the other hand, without even turning around, says, "Is that Gabrielli?" As it turns out, it was a friend of ours who was just messing with me, but you can rest assured that I wasted no time reporting this to his wife (it turns out she'd already heard it - he came home and told her because he thought it was funny), and that she and I are both punishing him in the manner in which he deserves.