Does This Belly Band Make Me Look Fat?

There are many things about pregnancies that can really shake a good husband up.   The irrational mood swings, the hormonal crying, the sickness all the time, the food cravings, the desire to shoot the person who knocked you up as your puking your lunch up.   Its not easy on them.   In all honesty, Chris is taking it like a champ.   He knows just when to hug, just when to go away, just when to reappear, just when to tell me to put my big girl pants on.   He has never really fawned all over me (thank goodness!), but with my pregnancy he has become attentive in ways that I never imagined.

So why then do I torture him with questions like “Does this belly band make me look fat?”   What do I think the right answer to this question really is anyway?   If he says yes, I’ll start to cry because I’m fat.   If he says no, I’ll start to cry because I don’t have a baby bump yet.   Its a no win situation for him.   And yet, I continue to do it to him.

At least once a day, I turn to the side and ask him if I look pregnant.   Again, there’s no answer here that will NOT result in tears.   But his answer is the worst answer you could possibly give.   Every time he says, “You look like you normally do.”

Now, this is a catastrophic answer on so many levels.   First, I am getting bigger.   I may not look like I’m pregnant yet, but I definitely have more stomach than I’ve ever had before.   So the fact that to my husband I have always looked this fat is, well, worthy of a good cry.   When he says it, I usually go into a horrible rage, completely with tears and pumping fists.

“So, you think I always look fat?   Are you saying that I’ve looked fat the entire 10 years we’ve been together?   Are you saying that you married a fat chick?”

And yet the very next day, I turn to the side and ask him the same question.

He’s getting a little better.   Now, he denies the existence of any belly at all.   When I ask him, he simply says, “I don’t notice anything.   You look skinny.”

And I cry again.   Because on one hand I want to have a baby bump so badly and on the other hand I don’t want to blow up and get fat and so the use of the word “skinny” reminds me that I will never have a 20 year old body ever again.   I’ll be forced to wear Mom Jeans and power walk on the weekends.

And yet, the very next day…     Its a vicious cycle.

Now, he has outsmarted me.   I ask if I look fat.   He asks what I want him to say.   Everybody’s happy.   See?   I told you he was good at this husband thing.