You're Pregnant!

As near as I can tell (meaning I did a few google searches), it was Dave Barry who said you should never assume a woman is pregnant unless you see a baby coming out of her.

I've always thought it was silly for people to say, "You're pregnant!" whenever a woman expresses that she's having an out of the ordinary day for any reason. That reason might be she's feeling sick, she has a headache, she's had a clumsy morning, she's tired. Okay. I take that back. Because all of those are relatively ordinary things actually. But expressing them will inevitably mean someone somewhere will assume you are pregnant. Never mind the fact that you might not be married or have never had sex before in your life. Do they think they are funny? They must. But what about the woman who wants to be married and having kids and people making such comments just reminding her that it isn't even possible to try yet? I can't imagine it's funny for her every time.

I've long thought that it was insensitive for people to ask a couple when they were having kids. Most people do not discuss their sex lives with others. So it could be that the couple is trying and hasn't been able to yet. You don't know if they've been dealing with infertility for years, or decades. And every seemingly innocent question is just one more reminder that things aren't working the way they want to.

But this week I'm adding "You're pregnant!" to the list of insensitive things people can say. Because this week it just about made me cry.

I was having a blah Monday and said as much elsewhere on-line. Two people made comments assuming I was pregnant. And then today in church a woman came up to me and congratulated me. She had to tell me what she was congratulating me for because I couldn't think of what it would be. She thought I was pregnant. Simply because I was having a blah Monday. Who doesn't have a blah Monday? Isn't that what Mondays are made of?

But the truth of the matter is that on Monday I was pregnant. But today I'm not any more. Physically I'm fine with it. And emotionally I'm doing okay for the most part. We haven't been trying for long at all really. But there was something about having someone congratulate me for something they don't even know we're working for yet (our families don't even know we're trying, just to remove the necessity of telling them every month when it doesn't work. We don't need that pressure), that was a bit much for me today.

People do so much speaking without even thinking about the words coming out of their mouth. I have to remember that (a lot more than I think I should have to). And I'm going to not make it a crusade of mine to stop everyone from making "silly" assumptions. Maybe I can just do my part and do a lot more thinking before I speak.