Originally published in The Bold italic
The first time it happened it was no big deal.
I was standing at the bus stop with two little kids I sometimes squire around town. The older of the two, who was seven, put a hand on my tummy, patted it reassuringly and said, “There’s a baby in there!”
I cracked up, wrote it off as kids saying the darndest things, and assured her that the only thing in my belly was a super burrito and all the fruit snacks I’d eaten from her lunch box. We laughed and moved on.
The second and third times were weirder. A coworker asked if my “pregnancy” was the reason I was quitting my job. A woman who asked the same thing raised her eyebrows suggestively when I said I wasn’t and remarked, “Well, maybe you are but you don’t know it!”
I’m going to spoil the rest of this story for you. I’m not pregnant. At no point during this story (or please god, my life, until I can get my shit together) am I ever pregnant. This isn’t one of those stories where everyone in the world knows I’m pregnant but me, and in the end I have a baby in the toilet at a Denny’s.
I would like to read an article like that, but I’m not writing one.
I stared at myself naked in the bathroom mirror the night of my coworker’s question. I did look a little different than normal. I’ve never been rail thin but my stomach is usually flat. I saw that there was a little pootch there. It was unusual but I shrugged it off. I was newly in love, which meant I was living in a hedonistic haze of weekends lying in bed with his and hers Jack’s Munchie Meals from Jack in the Box. I could see I had put on a little extra but I was getting loved up on the reg by a man who made me feel like a fucking Botticelli painting. I resolved to eat a salad for lunch and forget the pregnant thing.
Mostly I would demur and respond to these people’s (all total strangers) questions with a polite, “Nope, just fat!” or “Yes, we’re naming it Bud Lite Strawberita.” But the thing is, I felt more embarrassed by these questions than they felt asking them.
“
But then it happened again.
And again.
Mostly I would demur and respond to these people’s (all total strangers) questions with a polite, “Nope, just fat!” or “Yes, we’re naming it Bud Lite Strawberita,” and people would laugh. But the thing is, I felt more embarrassed by these questions than they felt asking them. One day I got fed up, and by fed up I mean drunk.
My boyfriend and I were participating in our favorite couples sport, taking shots and drinking beer at a local bar. I had just downed my shot when a drunken girl hobbled over to us. “Excuse me,” she slurred, “ but my friend over there wants to know why a pregnant girl is taking shots at a bar.” I swiveled my head around. A pregnant woman taking shots at a bar? That’s the kind of freak show I’d love to see live! Then I realized what was happening. She was talking about me. I was the freak show. A sort of drunken calm came over me and I leaned forward and said, “Well, tell your friend that he’s buying our next round because I am not pregnant and both of you are huge assholes.”
Her face went red, though maybe that was more because of the vodka than because of a social faux pas, but she meekly returned a minute later with beers for us.
Good for you, Sanchez, I thought to myself as I fell asleep that night, you stood up for yourself.
The victory was fleeting.
Then one day it happened, one really bad day, the kind of day where you’re at a Muni stop and the tracker can’t decide if the next bus is in three minutes or 43. A woman engrossed in a phone conversation was walking toward me. I backed up slightly so she’d have room to pass. As she walked in front of me she said a quick “thanks” and then doubled back, interrupted her phone conversation, pointed at me, and said, “Oh girl, are you pregnant?”
“Fucking no!” I said. As soon as the words left my mouth I wanted to apologize for being rude. But then I remembered, I may have a potty mouth, but at least I don’t go out of my way to tell a stranger they’re fat.
She apologized and I answered that it was OK. “But that’s really kind of rude, don’t you think?” I added. She stammered something in reply and then shuffled off into the night. I bet you could power a smart car with the force of the confusion from the person on the other line.
I get that for a large portion of the population being pregnant is an exciting thing. And I get that when you want to see something good, you end up seeing it even when it’s not really there. Hell, I’m the girl who walks up to everyone with a star tattoo and asks, “Oh my god, is that a Vonnegut asshole?” Except in these scenarios I’m assuming someone has really good taste in literature (even though that’s never what their tattoos are about) and not that they’re carrying another person in their body.
I sat down on the Muni bench after my interaction with the woman on the phone and cried.
I cried because apparently everyone thought I was fat. I cried because I was maybe a little fat. I cried because I never in my life wanted to be the girl who would cry about being fat.
Realize that when you ask someone if they’re pregnant, you’re not saying, “Wow, you’re glowing” or “Someone’s getting fucked on the daily.” You’re saying, “ It looks like there’s another person inside of your belly.”
Something had to give.
These incessant queries go beyond people’s curiosity about fertility. They’re another way of co-opting women’s bodies, in the same vein as telling women on the street to smile. Asking if a woman is with child is saying, “I’m a stranger but you owe me an explanation about your body.” And that’s not OK.
“
And I’ll take responsibility here. I was eating like crap. Contrary to the sage, spring-break wisdom of my friend Kelly, calories do count even when you’re in love, or on your period, or in love on your period, and hungover.
My Munchie Meals had to go. When I went out I started having only one really good beer instead of several cheap and icky ones. I packed my own lunches (inventing a truly bitching chicken salad in the process) and started walking everywhere. I felt better, healthier, and my food baby bump was receding a little bit every day. I was striding through the Mission wanting to treat myself to a you’re-not-pregnant burrito when a man catcalled me. “Ay, mamí!” He whistled as I passed, then when I ignored him he hissed, “Embarazada.” I don’t know how many of you took Spanish in 10th grade, but embarazadameans “pregnant” in Español.Que coño?!
So even when I do my part and eat like a normal person and not like a stoned teenage boy with a tapeworm, people still ask if I’m pregnant!
Look, I’m never going to be perfectly skinny (as you might have seen on Wednesday). I can do my best to be healthy but I’ll always have a body type similar to a lusty tavern wench. And I love my body and will do my best to love it at any size. Everyone else who isn’t me? Mind your own business. Bump or no bump, never ask if I’m pregnant.
These incessant queries go beyond people’s curiosity about fertility. They’re another way of co-opting women’s bodies, in the same vein as telling women on the street to smile. Asking if a woman is with child is saying, “I’m a stranger but you owe me an explanation about your body.” And that’s not OK.
So everyone, stop asking me if I’m pregnant! Stop asking any woman, ever! It’s appropriate to ask a woman that question only if she is actually crowning, and even then you should open with, “Did you get a haircut or something, Jill? You look different!”
If someone is pregnant and wants you to know about it, they’ll fucking tell you. Have you ever heard someone stoked about being pregnant who shut up about it? No! And more power to those women, smug though they may be.
You can, however, ask if I’d like a taco. The answer to that will always be yes.