Monday, May 26, 2008

rude!

Know what really frosts my cookies? When people feel they can say any old thing to me about my pregnancy.

Listen, I am lucky, I guess, in that I am one of those women who does not get huge all over when I am pregnant. I gained 27 lbs total with Daughter, and I've gained about 14 lbs so far this time. Daughter was only 5 lbs, 9 oz at birth and this baby will likely be a similar size. This is not due to anything I do or don't do...it's just what happens with my body. Believe me, I eat. I eat A LOT. Tonight at the Memorial Day picnic we attended I ate a big burger (with bacon and cheese, awesome), potato salad, mac & cheese, the other half of Daughter's hotdog, and one and a half desserts. I'm not even kidding. And I will likely have a snack before bedtime. I put the food in...what my body does with it after that is out of my control.

Still, I get comments about how thin I am, how I "had better put on some weight," how I barely have a belly. Which is wrong, I do have a belly and if I walked around naked it would be quite obvious. These are the same type of comments I got all the time during my first pregnancy as well and it's really annoying!

I know people are not saying these things with malice. My brain understands that. But what people perhaps don't understand is that I am hanging on by my fingernails, here, and while I have thus far enjoyed a very normal, uneventful pregnancy, my anxiety is actually at a fever pitch...just below the surface I am so sure the other shoe is about to drop. And when I have to fight my fear every single day - when I stop in my tracks several times a day to relax and wait for my baby to move, for the love of God, MOVE - it does me no good to hear people telling me I may somehow be doing something wrong. Especially when I am being so scrupulously careful about everything surrounding this pregnancy.

I also know some of you might like to throw something at my head for this, because maybe you experienced the opposite - the dreadful "are you sure it's not twins?" type of comments. But believe me, it is just as hurtful to hear the opposite and to sense the implied question of whether you're eating enough to support your baby.

Ok, that's my rant. I feel better now.

3 comments:

Pam said...

Next time just tell them you can't gain weight because you're too busy smoking to eat anything;-) Yup, that'll do it!

Hang in there:)

Unknown said...

I will never, EVER understand why people think it is okay to comment on the size of another person.

You're not being irrational, it's horribly rude. If the source of the comments are from where I think, take a big, huge spoonful of salt with your bedtime snack.

Would you like to borrow my purse-sized brick?

Ann-Marie MacKay said...

ah yes, pregnancy comments.

I'm sorry that people feel the need to comment, especially after everything that you have been through in the past couple of years.
I remember my Aunt telling me, and calling up family members to tell them that I was gaining too much weigh--and then when my daughter was born telling everyone that her head was too big because of all the carbs that I ate while pregnant!

:)

Just smile--you will be holding your baby before too long....