CHAPTERS on Why I haven't posted about my pregnancy

7 months in

As I negotiated the fourth layer of my February outfit after a gym class, a woman wearing nothing but a layer of body lotion streaking from forehead to toe asked, ‘how long have you got?’ I’m at the point of pregnancy where even my huge footy-manager puffer coat can’t hide what’s happening in my body. ‘Two months to go.’ I said. She told me that she had boy-girl twins and I tried not to look down at her bare body in wonderment - how humans grow inside our bodies never ceases to blow my mind.

‘Do you know what’s coming?’ She said as she dragged clothes across her limbs, like a highly caffeinated decorator sticking wallpaper onto pasted surfaces. No, I don’t. I thought. I haven’t a clue what’s coming. I am absolutely terrified of what’s coming. And if preparation is key then let’s just say, I’m locked out. Obviously, she meant what gender.

I’ve become more versed in these sorts of conversations since my belly is increasingly akin to an inflated beach ball but, they still take me by surprise. When my friend got pregnant a couple of years ago, I went onto the TFL website and ordered her a Baby On Board badge. She very sweetly kept hold of it and handed it back to me in our own little initiation ceremony.

The first time I wore it, a neighbour ran across the road to point and ask questions that I really wasn’t prepared for so, I quickly moved it to a pocket for moments of desperate seating needs only. At this stage though, it doesn’t take a badge to explain what’s happening to my long-forgotten waist. There’s no hiding it, even under my winter layers. And almost every time I am out in public, I find myself talking with strangers about my bump and my life.

I have mixed feelings about this.

If I’m tired or anxious, a shop assistant’s assumption that ‘I must be so excited’ can make me squirm. At times, I have felt a huge respect for the strangers who just look me in the eye and ignore the elephant in the womb room. The people who don’t feel it’s their place to comment on a woman’s body or presume how she feels about it.

But I’ve also grown gratitude for well-meaning people. The ones who give up their seat, bring you an extra cushion in a restaurant or take out a headphone just to say congrats. One minute you’re ordering a fillet of salmon, the next you’re discussing breasts and bibs with a fishmonger. No one warns you about that.

Then there are the other pregnant women or the women with newborns who, within minutes, tell you about their perineum, acid reflux or haemorrhages. I might have lost sight of my ankles but I have glimpsed into a new world, one that’s been hiding in plain sight. Motherhood has entered the chat.

For some people, a pregnancy announcement is plotted, curated and posted online like an event. The physical health equivalent to a wedding or first day of a new job. Maybe it’s a pic of their partner captioned, ‘soon to be mummy/daddy’ or a full length shot of them touching their stomach, ‘some personal news!’ When, or if, you post online about a pregnancy is as personal a choice as what sort of birth you have, what you name your baby and whether you ever want to do it again.

I wonder if I would have done the same on social media had I not lost a pregnancy before. Part of me envies other people’s confidence, their certainty. Their belief that a plus sign equals a baby. I used to think that too. But since experiencing firsthand that a positive pregnancy test doesn’t always lead to a pram in the hallway, I’ve kept my news mostly to real-life conversations and my journal. Struggling to even write about it on CHAPTERS until now. Because no, I don’t know what’s coming. No one does.

I didn’t know what was coming when I put on the badge, when I bought the salmon fillets or as I was about to leave the changing room and got chatting to a naked woman. But if, like her, I streaked body lotion all over my face, I would come out in one hell of a rash. That much, I can tell you.