Lengthy Pregnancy Rant

Decent article in Salon about invasive questions regarding possible future pregnancies. I'm not sure if people are heartless or just don't think. A while ago, before I got knocked up, we couldn't commit to a future social obligation for a variety of reasons and a third party informed many people that our lack of commitment was because we were planning on starting a family. Well, perhaps, but that's an assumption. What if we decided to postpone? Or not to at all? What if we couldn't? Why the assumption that then comes marriage and then comes baby in a baby carriage?

I have a few friends who have struggled with infertility and frequent inquiries of when they're planning on having children, which is frankly hurtful and annoying. I also feel for my friends who are not planning on having children and made to feel like freaks because they've made quite a rational decision. I mean, no one ever asks completely dysfunctional couples why they would ever bring a child into such a fucked up marriage! I have a close friend who is very intelligent and mature and decided years ago she doesn't want to have children, yet, a few people have asked me if she's changed her mind. For God's sake, she's 35, she knows her own mind!

A related pet peeve is when people tell me that having a child is the best thing that will ever happen to me or the best thing that could happen or, my favorite, that I'll understand only once I have a child of my own. That's really presumptuous. It's one thing for them to declare that it's the best thing that ever happened to them, another for them to assume that it is a universal maxim. Recently, I was at a dinner when someone made this statement of ultimate experience in front of a friend who didn't want children. I felt really awful for her, in the same way I would if someone made a racist joke. The implication is that, by her choice, she was only half a person or, in much more sexist language, that she was merely an empty vessel. I am very excited about having this baby and I am sure it will rank as one of the most important and life-altering events, but by saying this where does this leave my relationship with my husband, without whom this child would not be possible? Or my next child, if I have one?

While I am on a roll, I do have to vent about my body suddenly being in the public domain. Yo people, it is offensive under any circumstances to ask someone how much weight they've gained! (I also think it's tacky to ask how much weight people have lost. "You look fantastic," or "You look elegant," conveys the compliment without judgment. Or even a discrete, "Do you have any advice?" if it's a good friend.) Also, comparing your past pregnancy to mine is irritating. Yeah, maybe I am bigger than you were and perhaps you're trying to be empathetic with how uncomfortable I must be in my burgeoning state (although I'm doing quite well, thank you) but it's still really offensive to say that you never got as big.

Also, I do truly enjoy hearing others' labor stories. They are helpful, interesting and educational, but I loathe when someone assumes that just because x happened to her that I'm crazy for thinking that y would happen for me. Yes, I am planning on natural childbirth. Yes, I realize complications may occur. Yes, I understand I may have to undergo one or several medical interventions if necessity knocks. But I am a different person with a different body. I may strike the next near stranger who commands me to get an epidural.

Finally, I want to eradicate the phrase, "You think it's so easy," from everyone's vocabulary. I've heard this applied to everything from aforementioned natural childbirth to wanting to cloth diaper to refusing to feed my hypothetical children bright orange macaroni and cheese or raising them without television. I know it's difficult for people in our consumer culture to get this through their immediately gratified skulls, but easy isn't necessarily a virtue. At least not to me. After all, I did choose to go to the University of Chicago and it wasn't because I couldn't get into a real party school. (Violin, why anyone can just pick it up. Meisner, no challenge there. Slogging through Chicago winters, a dream.) If I could deal with that, why would someone assume that I'm delusional because I plan on taking a little extra time per week to put cloth diapers in the laundry?