A Pregnant Pause

What I loved the most about this article is how it talks about how women are supposed to hide their pregnancy and how isolating it is. I suspect part of this is because it’s a man’s world. We have to fit in at work because men don’t get pregnant and experience 3 months of nausea. Men don’t have changing bodies so we have to downplay what is going on with our body so they don’t get uncomfortable. The above article says that a young female police officer had to fake it in bars just to fit in with her colleagues. Why is this OK? Why is there no middle ground?

The United States is one of the few countries on the planetwith no paid maternity leave. Men in this country still scoff at the idea of paid paternity leave. I know because I’ve seen it happen more than once. People always talk about how beautiful pregnancy is. If it’s so glorious and amazing, why is considered a medical disability? Why do women risk their jobs when they go through with it?

I suspect part of it is because the reality of women’s bodies are kept alien from men. If we’re not whole people and only here for your entertainment, why do you need to understand us? Only a woman can create life, and thanks to modern technology, doesn’t need a man present to do it. How can you rob a woman of the power and beauty of creating a new human life? By making it something she has to keep hidden or be punished for. By making it shameful and expensive. By making whatever life inside her more valuable than the woman carrying it around.

Our culture place this cone of silence on pregnant women. It’s one of the most powerful things a woman can do with her body but it’s shrouded in silence for 33% of the entire experience. I think women need to be more open about their pregnancy experiences, the good, the bad, and the bizarre. In a world that is legally and culturally stacked against us, we need all the solidarity we can get. Pregnancy needs to be humanized. By humanizing it, we can help the world at large accept it and embrace it.

I maintain that when to announce your pregnancy and how open you want to be is a personal choice. Assuming the Duggars stick to the values they espouse, Jill Duggar went public when she was less than a month along. As expensive as kids are, I can’t say I blame her for the People spread. Blake Lively was so quiet about it I’m still not sure it was publicly confirmed she’s pregnant. 

I'd use more personal examples but my friends just started the wedding phase. The baby phase won't be for a while now.

Personally, I don’t think I’d wait the full 3 months. I’d probably go public closer to 8-10 weeks after sharing the good news with a few close friends. I’ll figure it out when the time comes in the not-immediate future. The more we talk about it, the more normal it will become. There’s a line between sharing and oversharing but when it comes to women's bodies, those lines are way too close. Let's see if we can pus them father apart, shall we?