Chillin' with Pregnant Women... When You Are a Pregnant Woman

I spent the early part of this week at a work conference, and of the 150+ people there, at least three others were ladies sporting the same "spring casual/swallowed a basketball" look that I have also lately adopted. Their bumps were varying sizes and hard to mistake for anything else, but I'm totally paranoid about asking a woman if she's pregnant unless I see an actual baby emerging from her, so I managed to say... nothing. I talked with them all at various times, I was polite and friendly, we discussed business, and not once did I ever mention that we might both have a fetus or two growing in our respective bellies. But, then, neither did they. Which leads me to a few observations:

- I'm still kind of shy about all this pregnancy stuff.
- I think it's not related to the infertility/IVF, actually. I mean, best case scenario, I would have been approaching them to join as members of the "we recently had unprotected sex!" club. Ummm....
- I feel like my belly is huge, but it's clearly not so big that I appear unequivocally pregnant (yet).
- Other pregnant women are also reluctant to ask someone else if she's expecting, perhaps because they're equally sensitive to the issue.
- What are we really going to say to each other? "Hey, you look like you're knocked up. Are your boobs covered in grotesque blue veins?" "Yes! How did you know? I'm also constipated, let's talk about that!" I ended up talking about the pregnancy most with women who had young children, who were offering advice on daycare and breastfeeding and very well-intentioned childcare stuff that I was able to nod and smile and take with several grains of salt. It seemed easier that way.
- Or, maybe I'm just a wimp and should have said something.

In other milestones, I had a very distant acquaintance actually break into a conversation I was having with a friend and say "Congratulations! Was it planned?" I was too shocked to do anything other than answer her with a firm "Yes." And then, classically, I came up with about 50 assertive-verging-on-nasty responses to her question right as she was walking away. Oh well. Other opportunities will come up in the future, I have no doubt.