{29w6d}

I'm just short of thirty weeks pregnant, and a customer that I've been working with for a few weeks finally looked down at my swollen midsection, point awkwardly and ask, are you...?

Why yes. Yes I am.

I was elated to have someone notice. I've spent the last few weeks rubbing my stomach as I sit with customers, touching my lower back in a signature pregnancy pose while standing at the copy machine and playing up an exaggerated pregnancy waddle as I head back to my desk in hopes that someone, anyone, would make a comment.

But once the floodgates had been opened, there was no stopping them.

That night, the checkout lady at the grocery store gave me the side eye when she saw the pack of soda I purchased for my husband, and I knew immediately that she was judging me for being a pregnancy caffeinated junkie. And the lady at the gym asked if I had any children as she gazed point blank at my stomach, a nice way of avoiding the possibility that I may just be chubby-since I was at the gym after all-while still safely considering that I'm most likely expecting.

And my favorite was the Zee rep from work who comes in every month that matter-of-factly congratulated me and asked when I was due as he loaded up our supply cabinet with a fresh supply of eye rinse and band aids.

So it's apparent that this child and I have grown like rockstars overnight, which I was more than fine with.

Until I went to the gym last night, where I encountered the full length mirror setting to the left of my treadmill and quickly discovered where my body has been hoarding those extra thirty pounds.

My entire life I've been average. Never noticeably overweight, but never stick thin, either. I have curves that I'm proud of, plenty of height and for the most part I've been happy with my appearance. So it's been such an adjustment for me to hear people use the word tiny to describe my countenance while pregnant, especially this late into the pregnancy.

Because we all know there is nothing tiny about thirty extra pounds.

But as I tried not to fall off the treadmill while awkwardly checking myself out in that horrid full length mirror, I concluded that my rear end had not grown; it remains as flat and shapeless as ever. But my lower back, upper back, shoulders, upper arms, neck and face have definitely blossomed, giving me an unattractively thick, trunk like midsection, and making it appear that my baby filled uterus just isn't sticking out very far.

But the truth is, the rest of me just swelled up around this child and ate it for dinner.

It's OK though, because I was at the gym when this discovery was made; not sitting on the couch, a fistful of potato chips in one hand and a remote in the other. I have to trust that God knew what he was doing when He made my body, and remain grateful every day for the blessing of being pregnant, no matter the temporary physical results.

Because when I hold my baby for the first time, I can guarantee you that I won't care one bit that arm flab and back fat are present.

So I avoided looking to my left, continued on joyfully with my exercise and all was forgotten by the time I came home to find these in my mailbox:

Baby shower invitations.

For my baby showers.

And the reality of our blessed situation suddenly became enough to pardon my body from swelling, distorting, and swallowing up my uterus whole. Because I'm thirty weeks into growing a tiny human, and I have less than a week to find an attractive ensemble to wear to my very first baby shower to which I am attending-with a miracle child in utero-as the guest of honor.

And even a full length mirror and a junkless trunk can't steal the happy out of that.

"To be pregnant is to be vitally alive, thoroughly woman, and undoubtedly inhibited."

-Anne Buchanan