Saturday, October 27, 2007

21 weeks.

We were at a Borders last night, and I read in one of the zillion pregnancy books that the ideal weight gain at this point in the pregnancy is between 10 and 15 pounds. Between week 8, when I began keeping track, and this morning's daily weigh-in, I've gained 19.5 pounds, making it much closer to 20 pounds. Assuming I weighed less before pregnancy, that's more than 20 pounds, though I can't be certain, as I've never been too obsessive about weighing and already it's hard to remember not being pregnant. Such a drama queen I am, but no wonder my mom and my coworkers are teasing that either twins or one ginormous baby have/has taken up residence in the ol' uterus.

And because we forgot to take any last week, here are some pics of the baby belly (with background mess and without; the chubby face and frizzy hair are here to stay!):



(Rob likes the first pic best; he says it's "more indicative of what's going on," i.e., rapidly expanding gut; I prefer the others, as they hide my true mad skillz at housekeeping, and the backside isn't visible in the last.)

Rob, at the suggestion of our sister-in-law, had planned to take weekly photos of the expansion, but that lasted all of one week and the one and only pic was five weeks ago.

We're not planning to do anything constructive today, though the house is a disaster and we have so many little projects to undertake, but Rob has a new video game and a just-begun book and I have two almost-finished books to tackle. I wasn't even planning to leave the house on this gloomy, chilly, rainy day, but I need to visit the health food store for some necessities (lotion, body wash, and dishwashing liquid). It may be my imagination, but I could swear that I've run dry on all three much faster than usual: my well-developed cynicism suggests it's because I've got a lot more body to wash and lotion and many more dishes (because of the rarely-ceasing appetite) to wash than usual; my less-educated guess suggests that I'm just cleaner and taking better care of the incubator (Rob's term--thank you, my love!). HA on the latter.

Speaking of the health food store, the proprietor of that fine establishment was the first man to ask "When?" (while tapping his belly, of course--and then he told me that "you still look good" before verbally stumbling to cover the gaffe.). I've noticed that about the male side lately: very few will acknowledge even fairly obvious pregnancies. Working in a library, I interact with scores of people every day, some that I see weekly or more often, some I've never seen before, most in-between, and even while still in my regular pants and shirts, women that I knew and women that I didn't would gasp excitedly, "Are you EXPECTING?" and "When's the BABY due?"

(I'm embarrassed to admit that a few months before I was in the motherly way, a very sweet grandmotherly type checking out books with her grandtot asked when my due date was, and then turned a lovely shade of fuschia and backpedaled (she blamed it on my shirt hanging in front of my belt or something) when I very crisply responded that "I.am.not.pregnant." Poor little old lady is not a regular, but if she happens to see me while I'm in fricking active labor, she'll probably inquire after my indigestion or something.)

ANYHOW, I'm totally off track now. Yes, I had a track: men that I see daily will glance at the tummy and not say anything, though admittedly they also will glance at the chest, normally fairly small but lately keeping pace with the belly. Maybe they forget about bigger bellies when they see bigger boobs. So, in addition to the dozens of women, I've had four males comment on the baby bump:
  1. the aforementioned health food store owner;
  2. an entrepreneur-type guy who was promoting his product at the library circulation desk--when I responded that I didn't have kids who might benefit from his wacky child safety product, he asked, "Are you cookin'?";

  3. a nice middle-aged library frequent flier--he asked, a bit more compassionately than usual, how I was, and then when the baby was due, and informed me, as have countless women, that March is a good time to have a baby, as it's not so hot and uncomfortable to be pregnant;

  4. a rather obnoxious preteen/young teen kid, whom I'd just somewhat curtly reprimanded twice for running and once for using his cell phone in the library--he stopped me as I headed into the storytime room for Toddler Time (more on that later): "Are you going to have a baby?" "How many months pregnant are you?" "In four months, you're going to have a baby!"

This post is so much longer than I intended. And I'm closing now, as I need something to eat, and Rob is moaning about his own empty belly...

(Oh, and I didn't really clean the mess in the first photo--I just pushed it out of the way. Out of sight of the camera, out of mind, right?)

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