Blimped Out and Darn Right About It

I'm not even close to exaggerating when I say that I had at least 10 comments yesterday from people at church as to how I'm "all of a sudden" showing, how I "popped overnight," how quickly this pregnancy has gone, and then a ton of random comments and questions as to when my due date is.

I suppose wearing my one maternity dress is like posting a "Take Notice" note on the bulletin.

Here I am in the dress at 20 weeks pregnant:

[caption id="attachment_1042" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="(to the bride's right, self-consciously being that annoying pregnant woman who shows off her belly in photos. Really not trying to, but hey, what was I suppose to do with my hands? Oh, something natural, like everyone else? Natural doesn't come....naturally to me. I'm weird like that.)"][/caption]

So yeah, I've worn this dress maybe 3 times, and not in the last 3 months. I saw this picture Sunday morning and decided I'd wear it that day because, hey, I've only got 5 weeks left IF I go almost 2 weeks overdue. I've got to get my money's worth out of it!

So here's a 36w4d belly photo in the dress, and one not in the dress, for comparison:

HOLY MOLY! It's actually quite laughable, how ridiculously huge I look in this dress. Mostly (as in, 99.9% of the time) I'm wearing the more form-fitting mat clothes, especially with the ruching down the sides, because most other mat tops make me look too blimpy. Like this dress, apparently!

So no-one really realized how far along I was until I wore this on Sunday. And just another comparison for good measure:

Oh, and because I think it's cute and funny, Matt was in awe yesterday that the belly is now bigger than a basketball. How can he tell? Because you can palm a basketball, but there's no palming this belly.

So I realized something last night. I was thinking back to some of the comments made, or rather, one in particular, which involved an old lady bluntly telling me, with her eyes wide and her tone so decidedly resolute, that I hadn't dropped yet.

(as an aside, what a ridiculous phrase! Dropped? As in dropped dead? Why no, no I haven't, good for you for noticing! All these taboo words when you could just say the baby hasn't engaged yet. Is the pelvis too sexual a body part to discuss so openly that I'm told **I** haven't dropped, when really it's the baby who drops? Or engages???)

I think I took it well. I said, "Well, she keeps engaging and disengaging, but you're right, at this point, I feel distinctly like she is NOT engaged. At least, that's what my lungs are telling me."

So here was the realization.

I always said that I would never claim to be an expert on pregnancy simply because I've experienced it before. It would drive me nuts when people would assume that they knew everything, because THEIR body responded to pregnancy a certain way, and therefore every other women would experience the same thing. I would get so mad!

And now? I totally act like an expert. What a hypocrite I am!

So I got to thinking about this and why it may be, and I came up with a few answers.

1) I can't stand uneducated-ness. Not that I'm judging the old lady, because they knew so little about their bodies and how they worked back in the day, but women generally don't "drop" weeks before delivery with 2nd or more babies. It is absolutely no indicator of anything. The baby doesn't generally engage in the pelvis until a few days before, or for some women, in labour itself. I've also recently learned the little interesting piece of information about a baby engaging and disengaging repeatedly (and have experienced my fair share of this today alone.) I know when I speak all technically it sounds like I'm trying to be some medical expert, but I like knowing things, and when I know things, I apply them. And it bothers me when people push me around like they know everything and are so clearly wrong or behind the times. Like this lady. It made me feel like she was bossing me around, and she was so old and wise and had had 6 kids so she knew everything. So I got defensive. I basically said back, "Nope, no dropping here, got a problem with that?" And yeah, I might have felt a little prideful, that it was really ME that knew more, not her.

So there's example #1 of my snobby, I'm-a-pregnancy-expert-now attitude.

2) It pains me to hear of people experiencing pregnancy who really don't understand what is going on. Not necessarily in a snobby way, either. I just feel like, if I know something that you don't, you should know it too. Like, my one close girlfriend lost her mucous plug at 33 weeks, called me to see if I could remember the MW's pager number, and told me the situation. She was worried about it and what it might mean. So I told her that losing a mucous plug could mean that her cervix is dilating, but that unless it's accompanied by other symptoms (eg - contractions, fluid, etc) then it's not a cause for concern. Also, she didn't know that the mucous plug can grow back. She felt considerably better after learning that, and I was glad to help. I didn't discourage her from calling the midwives AT ALL, I just told her what I knew, and left it to her.

3) I always swore I wouldn't be a pregnancy expert just because I've been pregnant before, and I think that mostly I'm not. I recognize that my experience was my own, and someone else might experience something different. Generally, though, what I'm a snob (or hypocrite) about is the stuff that I learned through reading and research as a result of being pregnant. I don't take my experiences and impose them on every pregnant person, but I do take what I've learned to be generally true about pregnancy and help others to know it too (sometimes in more direct ways than an on-the-side conversation...haha)

So there. I'm a hypocrite. Or really, just a girl who finds pregnancy very exciting and interesting and so has studied it a lot and is passionate about the topic and so has much to say about it.

Anyway, that's my ramble for the day.

And now, just because he's cute, here are a couple of pictures of Elijah from this morning. As in, before the nap that was too short and the hours of fussiness afterwards.

Ohh how I love this little guy. The fussiness came with extra cuddles, so he made up for the rough afternoon. :-)