Mean People

I have an acquaintance from high school that has an adorable six month old daughter. I remember enviously watching her posts while she was pregnant. One afternoon near the end of her pregnancy I was appalled to see a post she made about how horrible and hurtful people were towards her all the time. I couldn't understand it at all. She was tiny and had one of those adorable baby bumps you see on television.

Fast forward a few months....

I had already started to poke out a little, but the day after my doctor's appointment I suddenly just sort of popped out there. I was overjoyed. I have waited years for that moment. I will admit, due to my dietary issues before I got pregnant, I gained a little more than I probably should have in the first trimester, but my doctor hasn't said a word about it, and I've balanced out a lot now that I can eat a healthier variety of foods again. I suppose to someone that has never met me they might consider my belly to be a front heavy bulge, but when I look down, it seems huge already because I know it isn't my normal belly.

Even before I started to show, I had a few people that loved to give me some unappreciated jabs about how much I was eating or how huge I was going to get. Everyone close to me was so used to my minimal eating I guess, that once I started really eating, it seemed I was eating a ton. I have a few people that just cannot seem to see me without comment and I'm barely showing right now.

My grandmother is the number one ring leader in this. Granted, she's 80 years old and has absolutely no filter on what she says. She frequently says very hurtful things to the people around her, and she doesn't realize how horrible they are. She once lectured me for days about how wrong adoption was and how "God would make me regret it" if I did it. She felt that if God had told me no, he meant no.
She had a hard time conceiving and ended up having only my dad, although she wanted many more. She lost at least one in miscarriage. She has always taken our mission to have a child personally.

Recently, she came over to the house and watched intently as I made a s'more for a snack. She pointed to my belly and said "Don't you think you wouldn't show so much if you wouldn't eat so much. You are going to be as big as a house!" She also questioned me about what I was going to have for dinner one night last week and said "You are just dying to have that belly whether it's really all baby or not aren't you?"

She isn't the only person that has done this. There are several people, most of them very close to me, that cannot seem to find anything kind or positive to say. I wish they understood how self conscious I am already. I am looking forward to my belly. I adore it. It's a reminder that things are okay. I'm trying to push back all of the worry about weight and extra pounds right now. I have a hard time working out because I get sick when I get hot, and I do feel hungry ALL the time! With our budget what it is, it isn't easy to always make super healthy food choices. Sometimes I just go for filling.

I never considered this when I thought about being pregnant. I heard people fuss about people touching their bellies, or asking over and over why they hadn't had the baby yet. I never dreamed of having to defend myself and my growing belly, especially at such an early stage! I'm pregnant! I'm supposed to get a belly!

I ranted to a few people and made a strategic face.book post about it, just to get my point across to some of the offenders, but I'm sure I haven't heard the end of it. How did you handle those comments?