Looks can be deceiving

The first day we took Meg to the fair it was HOT. Over 100 degrees and blisteringly sunny. (OK, fine, I think it was in the 90s, but the heat index was over 100). It was so hot I was soaked in sweat within minutes of getting out of the car. It was the kind of day where you tell yourself you just have to get from air-conditioned building to air-conditioned building and you want to hurry, but its so hot you feel like you’re slowly moving through jello.


I’ve always felt bad for pregnant women at the fair, even before I’d ever been pregnant. There’s so much walking and its so hot (WHY is the fair in August??). That day, I was seeing pregnant people everywhere. As I trudged along, pushing the stroller, clothes dripping with sweat, I saw many pregnant women doing the same thing and I was SO HAPPY not to be pregnant. (I was also congratulating myself on excellently timing my pregnancy with Meg – I got pregnant in September, right AFTER the fair).

There were a lot of women who looked like they could go into labor any minute (maybe they were trying to induce labor by coming to the fair!), but there were also several with “baby bumps,” most of whom already had kids. I walked along saying stuff, like “look! That woman has a child who looks to be Meg’s age and she’s pregnant! At the fair!” then “look! That woman is trying to pacify TWO hot and sweaty children AND she’s pregnant!” (I was saying this IN MY HEAD. I was not walking around pointing at pregnant women and talking about them loudly)

Then I saw a woman with three kids. Two trudging down the sidewalk and one in a stroller her husband was pushing. The woman looked hot. And about five months pregnant. Ugh. That would be miserable. Then, as we got closer, I saw the child in the stroller was pretty young. Probably about a year old. I started thinking. That woman got pregnant again quickly! Wait, maybe not. She has three kids. What if its just baby weight? Yeah, that could definitely be baby weight. Actually, it kind of looks like…OH NO! Her stomach looks EXACTLY LIKE MINE. How many of these “pregnant women” I’ve seen today were actually pregnant? How many people walked past ME and felt sorry for the pregnant woman pushing a 14-month-old in a stroller?

P.S.  I was not staring at this woman's stomach.  I had two quick looks as I was scanning the crowd.  I'm sure she had no idea I even looked at her.  Besides, she was probably busy staring at MY stomach.