One of the great perks of being pregnant is sharing the news that you are. 🥰
It was great when in August we broke the news to our family and friends at baby girl’s and mine birthday party. Nothing quite beats the excited cries and squeals you get from loved ones as they run up to you.
It’s happiness, it’s shock, it’s excitement. It happened weeks before that with our own immediate families, telling my parents and sister’s fam, and then my MIL.
Being there to see their faces, is something else. Maybe that’s part of the reason why we haven’t done the whole social media reveal… the people who I genuinely care about and want to know our news, well most of them have found out face-to-face, or at the very least, phone-to-phone.
There are still those who are tinkering on through and discovering. Many people are starting to see photos of me on facebook sporting the bump, and so some congrats and messages are coming through…
But what about work? What happens when you work remotely?
I told my boss after our big reveal. He was the only one that knew, until today. It’s hard you know… there’s no kitchen, water cooler talk. Back in my old job, our inter-dependent departments shared information as well as gossip, and I would be standing in the kitchen making a cheese and tuna toastie when someone would go “hey, when are you due?”
All they see is my face here, once a week, and even then sometimes I miss the weekly meeting altogether.
I had feedback on a recent training session this morning, and talk turned to this new stuff we were learning, with this guy from another department. The conversation moved to that area, naturally, when he asked me if I was still enjoying what I was doing…
It’s not a matter so much of what I enjoy. I mean, I do enjoy my job. At the moment, it’s more about, what role will I perform, can I perform, when I want to come back from maternity leave?
So I told him. It was funny, because I was quite serious, going well, “my personal circumstances have changed in my life” before adding the clincher – “I’m expecting my second child.”
OH MAN! For a guy (no insult, hear me out) he was ecstatic for me. He doesn’t have kids of his own, but he was so, so happy, absolutely floored, shocked, excited, and kept saying, “what a beautiful thing, you have life!”
It was great to see, even if via a Teams chat, lol, and extremely refreshing for a guy.
I’ve had so many guys act awkwardly. (You know, even some girls!) Some of these people are relations, and they’ve made no congrats to us at all, only making some kind of joking remark that I’ve eaten too much lately. 🙄🤦♀️
Others are weird in another way. My pregnancy is not a secret anymore, and yet again (women) get weird about not finding out from my mouth that I am expecting. I’ve had them outright ask details, when are you due, how are you feeling… no congrats. Like none, AT ALL. It’s like they’re offended that I didn’t take them by the hand and sit them down to tell them that I was expecting. The fact that they found out from a cousin, aunty, friend, means they will not say any congrats.
It’s just sooo weird.
I’ve spoken about the guy-pregnancy thing to Hubbie. “What do you do when someone is pregnant? Do you react? Do you say congrats?”
He admits, it can be weird. Firstly, he thinks guys will NEVER ask or assume, just because, it is weird to comment on a woman’s body by asking if she’s expecting. (So what about that family member that joked I ate too much? 😅)
What if they’ve told you? Well then congrats is expected, he says. But unless he knows the person well, he probably wouldn’t go there.
You know what I think it is? It’s what men don’t understand. They don’t get it, they don’t live it, and therefore they’re terrified to go there and comment. Instead of congrats, they bark out questions: when are you due, what are you having? That’s the extent of it.
Also, if there’s blood running between the two of you, your bump is physical acknowledgement that you’ve had sex and are now growing a baby! I know, I know, it’s so juvenile. But I sooo believe there’s a subconscious thing at play here, that makes them IMMEDIATELY uncomfortable.
So anyway. You can see why I was so touched and impressed by this work dudes super excited display. After a lengthy and very informative chat, I went back to work, only to soon get another message from another fellow dude colleague…
He had been told my exciting news by the other guy. And he was reaching out, because he and his partner were expecting their second child too!
What an interesting turn of events. 🥰 I had two male work colleagues completely turn the tables on what I had become used to receiving from guys, and were super congratulatory about this exciting life event.
It’s really nice, about 6 months in, to still see people getting excited. I’m kinda hoping no one else finds out, just so I can walk into the Christmas party and blow everyone’s work socks off. 🤣
On a different pregnancy aside… I’ve just realised something. No proof, only myself as evidence really. I was telling baby girl tonight how I started her solids using sweet potato, or potato I think… I received sage advice not to start her on sweet foods, the reason being is that is all they will then eat! I was saying this tonight, reminding myself to do the same with baby…
And now as I have a late snack, eating some yoghurt, it hit me.
Yoghurt. Savoury.
I remember my Mum telling me she fattened me up as a baby on sour cream and bread. 🤣 It may seem weird but you gotta try it, it’s delicious.
And there is it, the realisation! I generally love savoury, because look what I was wolfing down as a baby/toddler!
Ahh, pregnancy musings. Love it. 💖💖🥰🥰😍😍🤰🤰
carcrashgratitude 