The Bump Chronicles- week 25

When did gender neutral become a bad word?
Seriously. I mean I hear all the time that people want to find out the sex of their baby before birth so that they don’t have to subject the baby to gender neutral clothes in mint greens or yellows. Is that really such a horrible thing? Now mind you, I’m not against finding out the sex of your baby before birth (what I’m against is when it’s done as a completely separate ultrasound with no medical justification such as an anatomy scan), but really, is that why?

And this whole time I thought it was because people couldn’t contain their curiosity, that would have been my reason had I gone and found out, not a vain desire of picking the “right” colors. I admit, I don’t like yellow baby clothes but I tolerate them. I actually find green clothes to be super cute. And I would not be against a baby girl wearing blue and a baby boy wearing purple (I’ve never liked pink).

The latest wave of resistance and judgment on this matter came at of all places Disney World!
I figured that I had plenty of time to kill since hubby was in line for a ride that I’m not allowed on and it would be at least 30 minutes before he came back so I went to browse around the nearest gift shop. I was looking at a wall of specially cute stuffed animals designed for babies when a woman asked me if I was having a boy or girl. I told her we didn’t know, and we were waiting until baby arrived to find out.

Her response (and I’ll never forget it!) was: “Oh, that’s just wrong!” She was completely serious. Until this moment I didn’t know that the maternity police had an active presence at Disney’s Epcot.

A nearby pregnant store employee pushed her way into the conversation and had the nerve to tell me that it was unreasonable to expect to have a gender neutral registry and that I was being difficult for not telling.

Difficult? How dare I make a personal decision without taking into consideration what strangers prefer? We only have a registry as a result of popular demand. If someone has a problem with the fact that it’s not blue or pink they can simply move on and I won’t lose any sleep over it.

Why do strangers I’ll never see again care so much?

I felt like I couldn’t walk anywhere without my husband anymore, not because I can’t handle the nosy opinionated people but because I know they won’t be able to handle me if I let my hormones and temper run the show.

Thankfully I had worn a loose enough shirt that didn’t emphasize the bump as much as my regular clothes so I was able to have relative peace for the rest of the day.

So the biggest adventure this past week was surviving Epcot while pregnant, it wasn’t so bad but it meant taking lots of breaks and remembering to drink lots of water. It helped that the park wasn’t too crowded and the weather was nice. For the first 2 hours at the park baby Fox had taken residence on top of my bladder but thankfully he/she moved before the bulk of the walking was fully underway sparing me getting to know every single bathroom in the park.

By the end of the day I was beyond exhausted and I just wanted to sleep and that’s exactly what I did as soon as I got home after driving home straight from the park.

By now my fingers swell regularly enough that I’m now wearing my engagement ring full time around my neck and the only reason why my wedding band is still on is because it’s a larger size and even then it gets pretty tight some days.

The research on the cloth diapers is still on, just when I thought I had made a decision I find another option that appeals to me. I did discover a diaper service that is available in our county, it’s not as cheap as buying our own but it’s still about $2 cheaper per week than the same amount of disposable diapers at Walmart so this may become an option if we can’t afford to buy them upfront and/or don’t get a washing machine in time. If we go this route the debate as to which type to pick would also be settled.

I have no new belly pictures this week as none have been taken, will have to catch up on that on next week’s update. So instead I’ll leave you with a funny…