What to Expect When Not Expecting
The worst thing that you could possibly say to any woman slipped out of my mouth last week. All my life I have avoided those four little words with triumphant success. I have even snickered at those who have said it. My sweet sister once put her hands on a woman’s belly and asked it. Horrifying right!? I have been with friends when some stranger asked it of them – some twenty years after the fact. There is nothing you can say to undo it. The worst part is that less than a month ago I was talking to this same woman and she was telling me about her new baby. I stood and talked to her and her husband for more than twenty minutes at a social event. What was I thinking? How could I, in less than 30 days, forget such an important fact in this woman’s life? In my mind and to my husband I have made all kinds of excuses about why I said it, but it doesn’t cover my faux pas. I am thankful she was so gracious about it, but I keep reliving it with sheer embarrassment.
“When are you due?” has been stricken from my vocabulary, hopefully never to be said again. If you are pregnant and I never ask you about it, you now know why. You are beautiful and pregnant, but you won’t hear me ask you a thing about it.