STOP! Get Your Own Bump!

Have you ever noticed that pregnancy has a way of breaking down social boundaries? I mean, what other time in your adult life would it be acceptable for a complete stranger to ask intimate details about your body? Or worse, just come up and start touching you!

For whatever reason, there is something about a baby bump that just makes strangers think that it is perfectly acceptable to ask incredibly invasive questions! While, “when are you due?” and, “do you know if it is a boy are a girl?” are fairly common, they are tame in comparison to some of the questions we have heard!

“Are you sure that’s your due date? ‘Cause you look like you are about to pop!”

(Really? You just told a pregnant woman she looks big. Probably not a smart move.)

“Are you sure you aren’t having twins?”

And if you ARE having twins,

“Are they natural?”

(Just for the record, unless someone is giving birth to androids, their twins are “natural.)

Perhaps the worst is people touching your body. First of all, it is never appropriate to touch another person’s body without their consent.

It’s just not.

Second, sometimes women are hot, nauseous, and irritable during pregnancy. Having someone, even a loved one, come into her personal space without permission can aggravate those feelings. (Meaghan used to think it would serve people right if she puked on them when they touched her bump!)

Everyone deals with the unwanted questions in their own way. I’ve seen t-shirts with funny remarks, politely (or not so politely) worded Facebook requests, and women who will respond in kind. Whatever your strategy is for dealing with the intrusiveness, you probably aren’t alone.

What did you do to keep unwanted hands, and questions, away?