I’m Pregnant. Don’t look at me.

I saw a pregnant lady while I was shopping today, and I smiled at her. She looked as though she didn’t appreciate that very much. So I walked away and started thinking about my own pregnancies.

When it was near the end of both of my pregnancies it used to bother me when people looked at me. I was absolutely ginormous, but when you’re pregnant everybody looks at you, big or small.

When I was pregnant with my daughter, the cleaning lady at my office – who didn’t speak a word of English – always did the same thing to me every Tuesday at 5pm. She would laugh nervously, make gestures with her hands while saying, “oooh big” and put up her two fingers, and say “two baby”.

I have to be honest here – I wanted to strangle her. I had a two year old who didn’t sleep, I was working too much, I was HUGE and very, very, tired. (Note: sadly not much has changed, only now I’m not pregnant) But I just smiled and said the same thing every time, “No, not twins. Only one baby here.” I would then complain to Nick and he would laugh at me. So, I wanted to strangle him too. Every Tuesday at 5pm.

That cleaning lady used to look at me, and I didn’t like it. Everybody used to look at me and I didn’t like it. I distinctly remember some of the looks that I received while pregnant:

The smile.
Most women look at you and they smile. They give you this really happy expression.

The sympathetic smile.
They look at you and their eyebrows do the puppy dog thing and you just know that they feel sorry for you.

The horror.
I swear that some people looked at me like I was some kind of disgusting, unrecognizable being. I would bet that some even cringed and looked away. This look always made me defensive and I don’t know how I held back and never got into any fights. I always wanted to say, “What are you looking at? How do you think you got here?” But I never said anything. Oh sometimes my eyes would shoot daggers at them, but this particular look always confused me. Until now.

Thinking about the horrific look, I think I gave someone that look just recently. It was the morning after a terrible night of both kids having middle of the night freak-outs, and I was exhausted. I saw a pregnant woman and I cringed at the idea of having another baby. I love babies, don’t get me wrong, but I was exhausted and bitter…Lady, if you’re reading this, “I’m sorry”.

I have to wonder if maybe those looks were coming from women who had terrible pregnancies, or whose babies don’t sleep, or maybe they gained 60lbs during pregnancy – just like I did? Or maybe they just thought I was gargantuan and should be on bed rest?

I guess I’ll never know, but after writing this and remembering how sensitive I was during my pregnancies I think that whenever I see a pregnant belly, I’ll just keep the looks to a minimum and just smile.