YOU LOOK SO BIG

Molly Gunn - 29 Mar 17

“YOU LOOK SO BIG…” And other things not to say to a pregnant lady.

When is it acceptable to pass comment on a woman’s size? When she’s pregnant, apparently. I’ve had this constantly over the last month since entering my third trimester. On the school run this morning THREE people I hardly knew said “You look so big!” Which each time left me dumbfounded. What, I wondered, am I meant to say to that? I thought I was rocking pregnancy pretty nicely, thank you. But thanks for telling me I look BIG.

The shocking news is that I am growing a human. OF COURSE I’ve got a bump. I’m quite enjoying my lovely bump. It is an amazing life-affirming thing, housing a beautiful growing baby. So I’d love it if someone said to me, “you look great,” or “you look blooming marvellous,” or I’d even take, “you look blooming.” But commenting on my size as if I am a gargantuan whale only serves to make me feel self-conscious and… irked. Instead of carrying on my day with a spring in my step, I then question what I’m wearing, if my size is normal, and just generally feel a bit underwhelmed.

When else would you say to someone; “You look so big?”

When a woman is pregnant there is a lot going on. Emotions are running high. Because, you know, incubating a human life-form takes a certain amount of energy – emotionally and physically. Babies do take up room in their expectant mother’s womb – it’s pure anatomy. If there was no bump it would be strange. To comment on it as if it is public property or fair game, is strange also.

But it doesn’t stop with comments about size. There is also much fascination by due date.

To be stopped by random people in the street who never say hello usually, so they can enquire “When are you due?” And then have them LAUGH when you tell them two months – feels like a violation. This happened to me on another school run the other day, as I was happily walking from my house enjoying the warm spring afternoon… I wasn’t thinking about my due date, or the fact that I am going to give birth soon, but I was swiftly reminded by said stranger, who walked off laughing, as if it was all rather hysterical.

I’ve wondered if I should write an approximate random due date on a Post-It note and pop it on my forehead when I go out. Just so that people stop asking me and reminding me I’ve got a deadline coming up. Suzy Ashworth who runs The Calm Birth School, advises pregnant women to be purposely vague about the due date so we don’t get harassed by texts or questions from people as we approach it – however well meaning they are, this all adds undue pressure.

So I’ve taken heed and I simply say vaguely as I wave a hand away – ‘oh, May sometime” – but even I am getting bored of that, because I have to say it so damn often. What I really want to say now, that I am 7 months in, is just ‘why are you asking? What do you wish to do with this information? What has my due date got to do with you?’

I told you, this is an emotionally charged time.

And the last thing that I am completely over people commenting on – as if they’re experts – is what gender child I’m carrying. A subject we’ve covered here on Selfish Mother a few times before. The “You must be soooo thrilled that you’re having a GIRL!” comments. Of which I encounter a lot, because YES I know what I’m having. And yes I have two boys already.

“Oh lucky you, you’re having a PINK baby.” People coo to me in a way that infers it is somehow better I’m having a girl, after two boys, than another boy. To which I take personal affront because I couldn’t possibly love my boys one iota more. My boys are the cat’s pyjamas! So when someone tells me that I should be so happy I’m having a girl now, I reply pointedly, by saying, “I would have been just as happy having a boy. Because I love my boys. I’d love my baby whether it’s a girl or a boy, I’m just happy I’m growing a child to be honest.”

But what I really want to say is… “F**k off.”

So there you have it. For all the wonderful things about pregnancy – of which there are lots, and before you ask, I’m enjoying it greatly and I cannot wait to meet the wondrous child growing so beautifully inside me – it’s simply the random comments and thoughts of my life, from strangers on a daily basis that I’m finding hard. Friends and loved ones, you see, don’t say these things.

For the record, this is when we least want comments on our body or our lives. With so many things going on – two other kids, a house renovation & working out how to run a company while I take some maternity leave – the fact that so many people I don’t know are constantly commenting on me & my pregnancy is beginning to take its toll.

If you talk to me and I suddenly, uncharacteristically, slap you in the face, it means you might have said the wrong thing and that it was the LAST straw! You’ll know that I’ve finally snapped, channeling Michael Douglas in Falling Down, and I’m done with the pleasant responses to frankly irksome comments.

So, if you’re still in doubt about what you should say to a pregnant woman? Say simply, “You look super today!”

Or, if that is too hard… just talk about the weather. “Isn’t it a lovely day…” will always be a pleasant start to happy two-way conversation. You see, even pregnant women like to talk about the weather.

In fact, it would be most welcome.

Molly Gunn

Molly Gunn is the Curator of Goodness at Selfish Mother, a site she created for likeminded women in 2013. Molly has been a journalist for over 15 years, starting out on fashion desks at The Guardian, The Telegraph & ES Magazine before going freelance in 2006 to write for publications including Red, Stella, Grazia, Net-A-Porter and ELLE. She now edits Selfish Mother and creates #GoodTees which are sold via TheFMLYStore.com and John Lewis and have so far raised £650K for charity. Molly is mother to Rafferty, 5, Fox, 3 and baby Liberty. Molly is married to Tom, aka music producer Tee Mango and founder of Millionhands. They live, work and play in Somerset.

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