not all bumps are the same
During my whole pregnancy people have commented on my size.
It didn't even give me the chance to comment myself because suddenly everyone else's comments were taking over.
I know I popped early. I was the one desperately trying to hide it and given the warm fall we had, it was easy as I lived in oversized sweaters.
At three months I was in maternity pants. Anthony came home after being away for one month and took one look at me saying "we need to tell our parents now, and not wait for Christmas". We had planned for Christmas which was the four month mark. I was nervous something bad would happen so I wanted to give the extra time to ensure everything was ok.
But, there would be NO hiding it. One month earlier than I wanted to share the news and on a night we had already planned, we told our parents the news. The night out was to celebrate my birthday and see his band's show in London. We sat down for dinner with our parents at a restaurant across from the venue, and waited to tell them the news. You can read it all here.
Needless to say, once the news of the bump was out, I didn't feel like I needed to hide my belly which was a good thing because it wasn't easy to hide.
And once the bump was out, out came the comments.
"You are so big!"
"Are you having twins?"
"How many babies are in there!?"
"You must be due soon!?" (at 4 months) and then when I said I wasn’t due until June, they would question me, "Are you sure though?", then again they'd ask, "How many babies are in there?!".
I kind of laughed it off. I'm a tiny person and I was carrying it all in my belly. Thankfully the rest of me wasn't really holding the weight. I hadn't really gained a lot of weight at all until month five, which started to worry me when I realized that and then I went from five pounds weight gain to 20 pounds just like that!
At first I brushed off the comments, but each day more and more came at me and then everything kind of hit me one night. We were in our first hypnobirthing class. Everyone around me was so much smaller than me, and as we went around the room saying our due dates I realized that my massive bump was not only the biggest, but we were the to be the latest due date in the room. Suddenly, I felt so embarrassed that I was so big. I started to wonder if something was wrong with me, or if the baby was going to be really big and make the labour harder. So many worries flooded my thoughts as I sat in that class, then all night long I laid in bed worrying.
BIG OR SMALL | it doesn't matter.
While my experience was that people were commenting on my largeness and how I must be carrying multiple babies, other mama’s I know were going through a similar experience of being judged by others, but theirs was on the opposite end. A friend of mine shared after me posting that I was bothered that people kept making me feel so terrible for being “so big”, that people were telling her that she wasn’t being a good mom, a healthy mom because she was so tiny. People were judging her that she should be bigger, that her belly wasn’t as large as they thought.
None of this is ok.
Just because someone is pregnant does not mean they are open for your judgement, criticism and unsolicited advice. The belly isn’t an invitation to come at us mamas. Next time you see a pregnant mama, give her a compliment, hold the door for her, or just ask her about her darn day. Not everything is about the belly, she’s still a person and I am gonna suspect she’s already focusing LOTS on the belly, doing what she needs to keep healthy, so why not just be kind and add something nice to her day. A little food for thought.
