some notes on being pregnant(while we still are...)

and first of all, yes, i say 'we.' i realize fully that i, the male, am not carrying the child, am not actually pregnant, am not burdened in the same capacity as my wife(the female). i am, however, burdened by the person burdened by, well, the burden.

i'm not about to get baited into an argument centered around who does more 'work,' the woman who carries the child, or the partner who takes on the responsibilities that the carrier can no longer perform. i'm not even going to go as far as saying that everyone does their share, blah blah blah. people who go through a pregnancy know what's up, and let's just keep it that way. 

but there is an aspect of being a pregnant couple that i would like to address- the non-address of me, the partner. during the last two months we've been walking our asses off in the hopes that it will encourage the little one to evacuate the uterus(due date was last monday, so no such luck). we go to the pond in the center of town- it's a nice measured walk around the water with some slight hills, plenty of green, and lots of other people walking, running, playing with their kids, etc. and since we live in a friendlier part of the city, it's not uncommon for people to stop you as you walk to chat about the belly, and so on. 

now, i've never been one of those guys who's all proud of his own MASSIVE FERTILITY, his total CLUTCH ABILITY to 'GET THE JOB DONE,' his total mastery over the ART OF MAKING A WOMAN PREGNANT. did i mention it happened on the first try?

a lot of my being humble about the whole thing is due to the meticulous planning and forethought that went into our pregnancy by my wife. she studied and charted and planned and followed the stars like we were on the kon tiki in the middle of the pacific somewhere, and getting pregnant was like reaching dry land. thanks entirely to her, Land Ho!

so i guess from the beginning i felt like a mere pawn in this whole game of getting pregnant. the stud brought in, then taken away after performing the task. STUD. 

i'm actually usually thrilled to just drop in, do my work, and get out without any attention. i like to be told i'm doing a good job, but other than that, let the work speak for itself. and none of that was about the act of getting pregnant, you perverts. jeeze.

getting back to our walks- we would walk around this pond and occasionally another woman would stop us to ask how far along we were, did we know what it was, etc. 8 out of 10 of these ladies would speak directly to my wife, ignoring me completely. no polite eye contact, no address of us as a couple, not so much as a cursory glance in my direction. 1 out of 10 would acknowledge me standing there, smiling like a mental deficient, nodding my head as lb answered their questions. and the last tenth would address neither of us directly, but instead ask all of it's questions in the direction of the belly. 

that's creepy enough, but not nearly as bad as the people(usually other young couples) who said nothing, made no polite attempts to smile, but would only stare openly at the belly as it passed. and not just stare, but gawk in horror, as if the belly itself were a wicker basket of freshly severed kitten heads we were just swinging along on our walk around the pond. at one point i turned to lb and said, 'i feel like it's the fifties and we're an interracial couple.' those were the kinds of looks we were getting from these people. i spent the rest of the time trying to decide which of us was the white half, which of us the black. i hoped i was black.

so my three choices here are:

a) invisible

b) a mute idiot

c) an act against the bible?

i'm not really sure how to characterize the last option because for the life of me i can't figure out what could be wrong with those circumstances. obviously some people have a hard time with that sort of thing. anyway, i guess i would have to go with choice 'a' because it avoids other people's hang-ups entirely. i'm just not there. fine.

but it's not fine. when this baby comes out, if it EVER comes out, it will be half mine. and i would prefer to split it down the middle so i get a little of everything. all i'm asking is that you address me that way. no, not like some baby-splitting psycho. but rather the second half of a very pregnant couple. i'm not just some total stallion out walking around with his trophy pregnancy. look me in the eye, don't just stare at the unborn fruit of my loins. i'm a person. with feelings. 

i mean, we. we are a person with feelings.