I resemble that remark

While I was leaving church this morning, more than one kindly woman assured me that I look miserable. I also heard: uncomfortable, rough, in pain, and, most cleverly, big. :D In the past, I used comments like this to gauge how close to delivery I was; a girl does begin to look a bit ripe, after all. This time, the gauge is broken. I’ve been hearing about how afflicted I look for close to a month, and I’m pretty sure I’ve several weeks to go.

I feel pretty! Oh, so pretty!

Granted, I am a bit funny looking when pregnant, so the comments don't hurt my precious, precious feelings. After awhile, they do make me tired. I’m just not sure how to respond when so many helpful people helpfully attempt to describe this, my current state of gibbousness. I think I have two options:

1. Commiserate. After all, the commenters just want to be friendly. Their genial elucidations are best viewed as extended hands, warm attempts to draw me into the large, blissful circle of womanhood.

2. Slap each offender square across the face.

Wait. Sorry. I didn’t really mean that. Of course not. What I meant to say was:

2. Laugh sweetly and assure my friends that the belly looks worse than it actually feels. After all, there’s a wiggly little person in there, which still amazes me (and weirds me out) even after having experienced it before. And, no, my hips don’t hurt . . . much.

Achieving either course of action is more cumbersome than lugging the belly, of course. But I don’t suppose imperious stares have a place in the church narthex. No. Naturally not.