Today I’m exactly halfway through my pregnancy which made me want to list everything that I discovered in the past 20 weeks.
What I discovered while being pregnant:
1. If some people get a “glow” and other people get pimples, I will invariably land among the latter. And N. will invariably confuse the latter with the former.
2. I only thought that buying swimsuits was torture. Now I know that real torture is buying swimsuits when pregnant.
3. The habit of wearing dresses makes maternity clothes completely unnecessary. It’s only the pants and jeans-wearing people who suffer.
4. There is nothing “perfectly natural” in being pregnant. Pregnancy is a state of discomfort. If this discomfort is a result of one’s own choice, it’s quite manageable. But if it isn’t a result of one’s choice, then it is severe hardship.
5. Contrary to what I thought, I still had a long way to go in terms of not being masochistic. I know this because of how often I use the pregnancy to justify not forcing myself to do what I don’t want to do.
6. As I always suspected (and tried telling people in a discussion on this blog a long time ago), “hormonal mood swings” are still not part of my reality.
7. I feel afraid of and flustered by female medical personnel and feel nothing of the kind around male medical personnel.
8. Students always know everything. Mine somehow knew I was pregnant this entire time, although I obviously made no announcements to the effect.
9. Sleeping on my back became so pleasant as to be physically addictive.
10. Anti-choicers are even more horrible than I thought before.
11. People are afraid of me. Even the folks who in my presence used to make aggressive comments to other pregnant women (“You are having coffee? Really? Are you sure it won’t harm the baby?” “Shrimp? Are you sure it’s good for you?”) keep their peace around me.
12. People use the plural when addressing me (in Spanish and Russian). This feels very weird.
13. Huge, sausage-like fingers are among possible pregnancy symptoms.
14. Being able to say, “As an old pregnant woman. . .” is as pleasant as I always suspected.
15. Having to give up on baths is not as horrible as I always thought. Showers are actually quite fun! And I have this hilarious bath hat.
16. People who talk to pregnant bellies haven’t become less creepy.
17. A human body has an endless capacity to itch all over all day and every day.
18. Pregnant people sometimes develop special body language that other people can read. (“Oh, I’ve known you were pregnant since February,” a colleague said. “I recognized the body language.”)
19. Pregnancy caused me to hear, “Wow, you look thin!” for the first time in. . . yeah.
20. Evo psych is a bunch of crapola.
Let’s see what I discover in the next 20 weeks.
Clarissa's Blog 
Agreed on the pregnant body language. My music teacher when I was in grade school started touching her stomach all the time or sighing/breathing in a way that signaled “trying not to vomit.” I told my best friend, “She’s pregnant.” She said, “How do you know?” I said, “My mom did that stuff when she was pregnant with my sister.” Sure enough, the music teacher was pregnant.
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People address you in the plural? Is this common? I never even thought about this. Do hispanohablantes use the plural to speak to a pregnant person? Please tell. I am fascinated.
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Actually, these were not Spanish-speakers. These were English speakers who switch into Spanish to transmit the idea of the plural. I’m sure people don’t mean anything by it, but it’s still kind of weird.
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In an Agatha Christie novel, one servant notes that a young maid sits down “just like a married lady”…
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