I’ve been sitting on a a lot of material for a couple of months now. I was just about to hit Post actually when my computer died and went to computer-heaven three weeks ago.. now it’s back, and with its new screen came new needs and new topics to address on this platform that I once created for myself. So here we go, finally.
I’ve been pregnant for 24 weeks now as of two days ago, six months that is – no need to get serious with the maths here, somehow it never adds up and never makes sense in the end anyways. But I’m roughly two thirds (an app my partner downloaded for our weekly amusement tells us I’m 60% in). Again, much like everything else from the health service; it kind of makes sense roughly speaking, but it’s also confusing and seems painfully unnecessarily complicated once you start comparing the weeks to the months to the percentages… But I’m pregnant enough to feel and see baby kicking and living his best life in there, pregnant enough to be oddly used to not enjoying wine as part of my meal, enough to feel physically limited and enough to have noticed peoples ignorance and stupidity around pregnancy on a general basis. I have so much to say here, but I’ll try stick to one main newfound issues that I have now added to the list over stupid shit I hate about people. Ok. Pregnant so far has taught me
One: ones physical business is no longer just your business.
Whether it’s casual talk about your last period over the dinner table or comments on how you look, carry, walk, dress, eat, drink, live, sleep, plan for, think like – it comes across almost as if people think that it is encouraged to the point of their obligation to voice their opinion on pregnancy to pregnant women. They love it. Including women who once were pregnant, women who never wishes to be, men who never has been nor ever will be, family, strangers, ages 5-95 – all of them; the group is type-less, genderless, ageless, frankly it is the most including group I’ve ever been so unlucky to encounter.! They just can’t help but to offer you their opinion.
It’s comical, is what it is.
I throw in a lot of goodwill for the older generations. I know they’re to some extent victims of their time and not one of them ever tasted the sweetness of privacy or equality like we have, so naturally they get some passes, they do. I can be gentle. But then again #metoo was many years ago. And I know your ass has been on Instagram longer than that. So at some point you, like everyone else, have to play by the rules of society of Today, granny, if you wanna participate. Because you don’t fool me…… we know by now that we should ask before touching other people’s bodies, right? It’s 2021. Covid and all that asides, that type of invasion on personal space should be scary to anyone these days. I don’t want anyones hands on me or my baby. Let alone his house. My covid-project…
So no touching, we can all agree on that. Now over to how you talk, you fools. I’ve witnessed, and this one really gets me, some people’s reactions when seeing someone pregnant that they haven’t seen in a while. The shock in some peoples’ voices when they see that they’ve grown…? “OH, MY, look at YOU. You’re huge!!!”
And I’ve always felt horrible for these women. No human should ever have to deal with another person’s shock or awe as a direct reaction to their physicality and have to come up with a response to diffuse the situation. Even when in a positive way, it still creeps me out whenever people make too big a scene regarding how another person look. Give it a rest, it’s just a visual, not the end nor beginning of your or their world..
Also, in this case (pregnant case) I’ve often wondered how few pregnant people people are actually exposed to during a lifetime, on an average. Because it seems to me most people don’t have a clue how different pregnant people look and how different people carry! Yet, the comments.. We would NEVER talk about peoples bodies the way we do pregnant bodies. Never. Seems people think it’s all up for grabs just because it’s..what? no longer just her body? I’ve got news for you.. it is just her body, still.
Some women start showing early and are met with gloomy promises of the Biggest Belly Ever Seen to Man should she keep growing like that, meanwhile she was just small to begin with.., or she simply started showing early? Women are being asked about non-existing twins, joked about due dates, questions about shapes, weight and sizes we would never dream of asking anyone about normally! Can you imagine sneaking up on Mildred after her lunch break, grabbing her belly asking her how she’s digesting that leftover lasagna, her stomach really does look a bit protruding today -why does she think that is..?
Who knows why some show late or early: More importantly: who cares how and why our bodies do half the stuff that they do? It’s amazing, let’s leave it at that. The way we live our lives, at the pace in which we do – it’s amazing the constant silent damage-control our bodies do for us. We should be thankful and stop calling it weird or inconvenient every time it reacts to something. That’s worthy of awe. The functioning of our bodies. Not the way it looks at any given moment. I’m so tired of it, aren’t you?
(And, quick reminder, a woman doesn’t jump ship once she’s pregnant, it’s still her body. Still something that can feel insecure, judged, objectified, sexualized, self-aware, uncomfortable in its own skin.. We still identify this vessel as our body…ok? Whatever you say to my “pregnant body” my body will hear, ok?)
I’m so grateful to myself (me and snoop d, same) I am where I’m at in my own skin at this point of my life it doesn’t affect me much anymore. These so called well-meant observations or tips or whatever of yours. But it pisses me off because I know the possible damage it could’ve done to Viktoria age 20. Even 25. She would’ve cared. She would’ve placed much of her value in looking great as pregnant, and taken any possibly negative comment as a heavy sentence. I’ve so far loved being in my body during pregnancy, none of the changes has made me feel any less than perfect. The only times I’ve felt insecure has to do with someone else’s comment. Have I felt the most attractive these past five months? No. But that’s beside the point here. All I can think of is that changes are good, changes are bound to happen, and maybe, just maybe I’m embarking on a new adventure in life where I won’t find a need for a thigh gap ever again. Who knows, maybe my body will forever be changed, and that’s ok. The least on my mind is worrying how I am looking or how I am going to look like after this, and how I can forever delete (?) the evidence that this beautiful life-altering experience took place?
Believe it or not, we’re busy doing important building-life stuff. We’re not initially waddling around obsessing over how we look whilst at it.. You do that!
Stop.
welcome to the world of neurotypicality. we are not wired to tolerate that shit.
also, it’s ridiculous how people assume anyone has agency/control over their body so they deserve compliments or critique for it. ri-di-cu-lous, and that involves fake post-pregnancy belly competition among many women.
as if there weren’t way better things to think about and care for, right? like, learning some biology, perhaps.
Right!!!
“We should be thankful”
Jeg er helt enig og jeg er veldig glad for deg!
“…men hun skal bli frelst gjennem sin barnefødsel…”
Late December until just-about June and one broken laptop repaired…..I wonder if that qualifies for what they call ‘a pregnant pause’? (I shall not comment on the ironic title of the last piece)*.
Strange that some of your listed issues are not only addressed to expectorant mothers but also to middle aged, balding men who like their beer and don’t get enough exercise (not me of course…I am ancient)!
Maybe ‘no smoking’ but it’s nice to know that with your profession, you are allowed to carry on smocking.
All of the above well said though…..it’s so easy to slip into the “oh, you just sit down dear and take it easy as you are in your condition…let me do that for you”. At least now we don’t always hear a demure “oh thank you” but sometimes; “that’s very sweet of you, but I am having a baby, not suffering from some debilitating illness”!
All the best,
Peter <3
(*Oh, seems I did).
Aaaahh appreciate the smoking/smocking comment. Points for that!
It’s a good job you didn’t look up what ‘expectorant’ means…I got away with that Malapropism!
Thanks for the points Viktoria.
Have a good weekend!
looked it up. Cough medicine? points still stands.
Ha ha, yes (obviously not meant as an insult…just a mainstay of British humour)…Shakespeare, Count Arthur Strong, Hilda Baker are/were famous exponents and many personal friends who you have to try and maintain a straight face with (not burst into laughter) when they innocently tell you something like “oh, he’s got prostRate problems” or “yes, my son’s sailing the Specific Ocean at the moment”, or “I seem to have avoided the CoviS Virus so far” (a cross between Covid and Hovis (A British brand of wholemeal bread)?
I am sure there are funny Norwegian equivalents.
At a glance, your signature picture got me wondering…..(sadly I am really not into fashion) but I initially thought the chair was a garment (my old eyes) and I got to wondering if anybody has experimented with grain effect fabrics….very unusual/inspired by Nature.
Let’s all keep smiling; enjoying the sunny weather and whatever life pushes our way, both good and bad as we continue to do battle with ‘The Four Horsemen of the Alcopops’! (Couldn’t resist it…sorry). 😉 Probably lost those points now!
Women not having or having limited body autonomy is something ive learned more and more. It reflects the patriarchal system. Wow my college is showing lmao.
I havent been pregnant yet but i think its important for people to talk about this and im glad you have. Thank you for the insight (:
Hope youre well!
Also,
Women are amazing.
It’s all rather quiet in here!
Very young children and the young-at-heart like drawing and writing on walls in unfrequented corridors (be warned). 😉
Following a certain, very understanding and tactful refusal of a religious blessing in an Instagram post, the whole subject has been playing on my mind recently. It happens to us all, and is very well intentioned.
It seems rather strange that according to the references, the Viking people were ‘forced’ into Christianity by King Olaf 1st.
That all seems a little unChristian doesn’t it?
‘Forced’ like rhubarb, kept in a dark room, lit only by candle light; or like celery, wrapped in damp newspaper and cinched with soggy string….(the former I am guessing).
It was whilst I was building a cross-brace on some wooden steps that it struck me that a certain chippy from Nazareth’s act finished when the materials of his own trade were used against him (though there was an encore, we are informed).
A bit like a plumber form Aberystwyth ending up drowned in a bath he has just fitted or a singster being forced to ‘enjoy’ the delights of Florence Foster Jenkins, Monty Python’s ‘I Like Traffic Lights’, or Kate Bush’s ‘Experiment IV’.
Or a comedian who is made to tell ‘The Deadliest Joke’ (another ‘Monty Python’ one, I am sorry to say).
Of course, we Brits were greatly encouraged down the road of Humanism by Charles Darwin who used to play his violin to earth worms! (Yes the same one who earlier rode on a beagle around the world)!
Funny what comes to mind when one is doing D.I.Y. isn’t it?
All the best (if this ever get’s discovered of course).
Toodle Pip.
Peter <3
PS. I have just watched a few episodes of ‘Fat Man Goes Norse’ (sound was terrible) on YT….children getting married in Voss, Norwegians secretly distilling ‘liquids’ in ‘Sputniks,’
and old age pensioners only able to ‘heat or eat’….Ah, historic Norway! (Episode 3 (I think) has a priest in Sweden who utters the ‘You can’t eat money’ quote (he looked just like a British comic C.1970/80’s called Mike Yarwood as well….all quite a shock to the system)!
Congratulations to you and your fiance in welcoming your son to this world! What an exciting new chapter in the lives of everyone!
Great and wondrous adventures await!!
SKOL!!!!!!
^_^
hey, viktoria
hope everyone is fine and congrats belated !
…wow the last release from the ‘lil one is really an anthem… it fit’s so good in re-new’ed and same time never gone 80’ness of the world… the balance is so intuitiv that one could think oh ja nice pop song..but this always deeper existantial joyfull suffering layer… love this one !
from the musically view not everything is mine, but i really love her, if she connect’s with the aesthetics of the 80ies…
i dont know if she is writing beside music, but i would be so interested in reading more, about her fundamental thoughts from a let’s say a philosophy of life perspective… so may if the time comes i would be honestly interested in an interview about “das selbst, das sein und die zeit”
so no further interpellations from the annoying german for this year
cheers 😉
PS: i would die for a pixies cover ! 🙂