Popping

Things are moving along, which in many cases means surges of growth. There are lots of things that you can't control about your body while pregnant. Many of these are often surprising. One of those things is when you "pop", or at least that's what they call it on the pregnancy forums.

Apparently for many women there comes a point in your pregnancy where one day you look just overweight and the next you look pregnant. Your belly just suddenly seems to have popped out. This apparently happened to me yesterday. I came home from work and B said something like "Wow, you look pregnant!" when his mom arrived later she said the same thing almost as soon as she made it through the door.

It's kind of exciting but also a little weird. I wonder if once I get a little bigger people will start to talk to my belly instead of my face. I realize I suddenly will start to be pigeonholed into the "pregnant lady" group by strangers and new acquaintances. This is not a bad thing, it doesn't make me upset in anyway, just intrigued. Before I was pregnant I of course would do the same thing, I imagine most people do. You see a pregnant woman and you immediately associate whatever preconceived notions about pregnant women you have with them, this of course changes once you get to the know the person. But it's weird to think that being pregnant will for the next 6 months be part of the first impression I make on people. People I don't know may begin to judge me if I do anything that they might not consider appropriate for a pregnant woman, if I lift anything heavy, eat anything raw or drink something that looks like beer or wine. When I get bigger people might give up their seat on the metro or go out of their way to open a door for me and depending on how I'm feeling that day I could be very grateful or just feel awkward. Either way I'll just have keep reminding myself that it won't last forever and will just be one more new experience along the way.