Since 32 weeks, strangers have stopped dead in their tracks to gawk at me. Like, stare, mouth open, in disbelief, to comment on the shape and size of my body and ask questions about my unborn baby.
My thoughts are in italics.
Outside a movie theater on a cool day in April:
Old Lady: "What does your baby think of this weather?"
Me: "He wishes it were summer!" My uterus is fairly climate-controlled, and he has no concept of weather.
Old Lady: "He must be coming out soon!"
Me: "Not until June. I wish it were summer, too."
Old Lady: "You carry [stretching her arms in front of her belly] OUT."
Me: "Yeah." Good thing she included the gesture, or I wouldn't have understood the way my belly protruded.
[insert conversation about quantity of my children, and the genders and quantity of her own children]
In a Lowe's:
Old Lady, who stopped suddenly and whipped around after passing me: "WOW. You must be due any day now."
"Nope, I've got 8 weeks left." Am I supposed to small-talk with the woman staring at me?
[insert conversation about the gender of my baby, quantity of my children, and how she didn't know the genders of her children until they were born, and the quantity of her own children]
At a cash register in IKEA:
Old man who walked past me, then turned around and walked back to me: "You're gonna have that baby on the drive home!"
Me: "Yep!" I guess you never know when a woman will start pre-term labor and deliver in her car on a 35-minute drive.
Me to cashier after man left: "I'm not due for 6 weeks, actually."
The cashier smiled sympathetically: "$4.50."
After a conversation like one of the above occurred 6 times, I vowed to punch in the face the next person to say, "Any day now, hu?" But in the moment, I'm too stunned to do anything but smile weakly and try to remember exactly what they say so that I can elicit either pity or laughs from my friends/family later.
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