POC and a Call to Action

When talking to people who aren't "in the know" about the workings of Papua New Guinea and its orientation course, Pacific Orientation Course, we affectionately call it Jungle Camp.
It's 12 weeks of training on culture and survival. They'll teach us how to make a fire and cook over it. They'll give a few lessons in Tok Pisin and they'll teach us how to build relationships with the nationals. And much much more, culminating in a 4 week stay in a village. If you survive, you pass. (From my understanding, the death toll is non-existant...)

Historically, this course has been offered twice a year, in January and August. For the first time, they decided to offer the course in May. It is this course that we are registered for.

However! There have been complications in finding enough teachers for the course. The consequence of not finding teachers? The course will be canceled. The course is full and all of those students, us included, will face complications in arriving in country. Additionally, the August course is already booked so attending the next course offered is not an option.
We need prayers that suitable teachers will be found and the course will be able to proceed as scheduled.

Furthermore! If the course is held but we are unable to raise funds to leave for POC in May, we will not be able to attend POC in August, as it is full. So it is very important for the funds to be raised and the course to be held in order for us to get to the field in May.

We need your prayers.
But we need more that prayers.
We need supporters and this may be you.
We need connections and you may be the one who has them.

God has a team of people who bring us to 100% of our budget.
At this moment, we don't know who all those people are. But you may be one of them. You may know one of them. Please help us find our team.

Presently, we're in Phoenix, AZ. We'll be headed to San Diego from here. Then Vegas, before heading north to Portland and Washington State.
From there decisions on where to go next will be made off of our funding situation and our leads.

If you're not on our itinerary but you have ideas of people who might be on our support team or if you think you might be one of these supporters God has in mind for us, we can still get together via Skype or Google Hangouts and answer questions and share more about this amazing ministry committed to seeing transformed lives.

Please help us reach our goal of leaving for Papua New Guinea. There are Bible-less people who long to have the Scriptures in their own language and need help in doing so. Help us help them.
We can't do it without you.

The Really Minimalist Guide to Newborns

Due to the fact that we're nomadic and have limited trunk space, I scoured the internet looking for a minimalist guide to what to purchase for my son. I really wanted to fit everything he needed in a carry-on bag. I'm not *quite* there yet. But pretty close!

But all the minimalist guides I could find had a bit of excess...

So Here's The (Really) Minimalist Guide to Newborns

Sleep:
There are a couple different travel friendly options for sleeping. The true minimalist would choose just one (although at the moment I do have all three...). None of these can fit in the carry-on but they are all trunk friendly.

• Pack and Play - These have become so fancy! I love the bassinet feature, which means that I don't have to bend in half to pick up or put down the kid. The little tiny napper thing and changing station is a little unnecessary. I do wish I had the pack and play that comes with built-in storage space. Alas, retrospect. 
• Peapod - For quick trips, we love our pop-up tent. Covered with UV protection and mosquito netting, it's great for trips to the park or beach. The thin mattress that goes underneath the tent makes it perfect for weekend trips away. It folds down into a small circle the size of a car's sunscreen to easily slip into the trunk. 
• Travel Bassinet - My mother-in-law got us this. It folds up flat, which is definitely nicer than the space the pack and play uses. It does require more in the way of bending and baby will grow out of it sooner than the pack and play, but when space is a priority, this is a great choice. 

Swaddle:

• Woombie - Now I love the aden+anais muslin swaddles but my husband had trouble rocking the origami required for retro swaddling. Instead we invested in the Woombie. We have 5 total and we could probably survive with less. They take way less space than the muslin swaddles and are way less complicated. Just zip them up and then you're done!

Clothes:
The thing about clothes is you'll get a ton and not all of them will be the right size. When they get too small, donate them, stat! You can return the larger stuff and hold on to the store credit until you need them. Or, if you're nomadic like me, you can leave them with someone and have them ship the next size when it's time.

• Sleepers - Those footy pajama things? Buy 5. Quick, easy, no worry about matching or finding socks. 
• Onesies - When it's hot, these are the way to go. 
• Pants - Somehow, my son manages to soil more pants than onesies! Or maybe we just have more onesies than pants... Either way, make sure you have these and a few spare in the diaper bag. 
• Socks - Make sure you have socks and just go ahead and keep them all in the diaper bag, because they will get lost, or baby will have a blow out in his sleeper and you won't have any and everyone will think you're a horrible person because your kid isn't wearing socks. ...not that I know from experience or anything. 

Bathtime:

• Bath chair - We had a little seat for the bath someone gave us, but we tried another method that we and baby liked a lot better. We folded up a towel which he used as a pillow and put less water in the tub. Even with less water, he's more submerged which keeps him warmer and happier. 
• Washcloths + towel - If you feel like your towels are soft enough for baby, then scratch this off your list. But as much as we travel, we don't know the quality of the towels at our destination. Plus, baby towel and washcloths are thin and don't take up much space. 
• Toiletries - We use Aquaphor baby wash and baby oil for his dry scalp. Two bottles and done!

Diapers:

• Diapers - We use cloth diapers, though when traveling, if you find yourself with only access to a laundromat, disposables may become a cheaper option. We run our diapers through the wash 3 times before using the dryer. That adds up! And carrying enough diapers to launder infrequently enough that the price is ok would take up a lot of space. So we use compression bags. 
• Wipes - We also use cloth wipes with the same problem as above. 
• Diaper Rash solution - We prefer baby powder. The paste is just too messy....
• Diaper Bag - If you have a fabulous purse, you could use that instead but you need a bag to carry things for baby. Most diaper bags come with a changing pad though if you want some extra, the cover for the pack and play changing station are thin and easy to travel with. 
• Wetbag - If you're doing cloth diapers, you need a place to throw the dirty ones. Wet bags keep moisture and smell in and you can just unzip them and drop them in the wash with the diapers!

Feeding:

Breastfeeding makes all this a lot easier!

• Nursing scarf - Warmth and cover all in one!
• Nursing Bra - These are a convenience item well worth the money! (And Walmart sells them for cheap!)
• Nursing tank top - Cut the straps off an old camisole, leaving enough of the strap in front to loop it around and tack it back on the shirt. Now it can hook on the nursing bra and you didn't spend $40. 
• Nursing pads - Loving Moments are the best! I got some from Babies R Us that ... "fill up", making a mad dash for clean ones while nursing. Let me tell you, that's not easy. But these just keep absorbing and are excellent. 

Carrier:

• Seven sling - From the time baby can hold his head up, this is the easiest! Just throw it over your shoulder and drop him in! No origami required! (And usually you can find a coupon so you only pay for shipping! I love free!!)
• K'tan - For longer ventures or smaller babies, the K'tan is like a Moby wrap but with less origami! You can even do a DIY one with ease!
• Stroller - You can always go for a stroller instead but they take up a lot more trunk space.
• Carseat - It you're nomadic like us, you'll want to invest in a nice carseat that's super comfortable. We choose a convertible so that we're just laying down that money once and he should be able to use it until he's too old for a carseat!

So here are my bare bones recommendations! A few are options where you only need one but the rest are essential!

Tortillas don't freeze well - The Freezer Meal Adventure

Before my son James was born, I sat down and made 52 meals and froze them.
It was insane.
If you're thinking of undergoing such a task you might be interested in our process. If you're just interested in freezing meals, I'd skip down to the aftermath where I share a couple lessons learned, the most important of which is TORTILLAS DON'T FREEZE WELL.

Prepping:

So a lot of planning went into this.

First I picked out meals. Just searching Pinterest. I started looking for freezer meals specifically but then figured anything could be frozen so grabbed any recipe that seemed delicious.
Then I counted them up. 52 meals for 60 days. Waaaay too many! Most casseroles would take us a couple days to eat. Each soup recipe could feed an army. But, again, we were only here for 2 months and a normal stable family could afford some overflow into subsequent months.

VITAL PREP
The most important step was the shopping list. I made an excel document with column B as the grocery item. The following columns was a recipe each and I would type how many of a grocery item I needed. Then I would add up everything in column A. It wasn't the prettiest system in the world but I had a master shopping list. (Recipes vary on their use of quantity vs weight vs volume. This was a complication for sure!)

I printed off each recipe.
I separated out which recipes could have the chicken pre-cooked vs which ones had special seasonings or preparation.
Then I wrote in the margin the prep time vs the cook time for each item vs no cook. (So if something needed sauteed onions then mushrooms then add other soup ingredients then boil for 20 mins, I'd say it needed 10 minutes of prep before it could be left on its own) (No cook - Some casseroles required no cooking other than maybe chicken which could be precooked. Such items required no stove time which was nice.)
I separated out the soups.
And ordered everything by the amount of time they needed to cook.

Luckily, I had my mom, my sister, and my husband with me to help shop, so I tore the shopping list into thirds based on the type of food and gave out a list for produce, dry goods, and meat and dairy respectively. I flitted around helping each when they needed help deciphering, deducing, or deciding.
Three full grocery carts pulled into the checkout.
The groceries were $500. About $10 a recipe and *a lot* less per meal.

Cooking:

We started by cooking pounds and pounds of chicken. Most either needed to be cubed or shredded. My husband caught up on a lot of TV shredding chicken.
I had wanted to cut all the veggies before we started cooking so everything could just be grabbed and thrown in but that didn't turn out to be the most practical of decisions. And we cut as we went.

I picked a couple recipes that needed some time to simmer on the stove and got those underway while I turned to the recipes that were No Cook.
The goal was to finish as many recipes as possible both to keep up morale and to help clear the living room table of it's stock.

It took a while, and was much faster when my mother and sister were home helping, but all things considered, it went off without a hitch.

Aftermath:

As I stated, we made way too much food.
We should have bought smaller casserole dishes as each one supplied us with multiple meals and the constant reheating wasn't good for the quality.
They took FOREVER to unfreeze. We could lay them out the day before and they'd still be in the oven for hours. (Though we have reason to believe that oven wasn't the best.)
Soups were the best. They thawed much more quickly than the casseroles as they could be stirred and were very delicious.
Freezing flour tortillas in a casserole is a BAD IDEA! They degrade into mush. It's like eating raw dough. Don't do it. (Corn tortillas also degrade but it gives a tamale texture and doesn't trigger the gag reflex.) (Burritos are fine. It's the being submerged in wetness that kills them.)


It was so nice not to have to worry about cooking with a newborn. And living out in the country, not having to worry about making trips to the grocery store was also nice. It simplified life and I, a planner, loved the process!

The Parable of the Newborn's Needs

I know it's the most horrible thing in the world or whatever to be wistfully anticipating the next stage in my child's life instead of just enjoying this one.
But.
I can't wait until my kid can actually, like, love me.
I hear mommies talk about how their kid crawl to them for books, or cuddles, or milk or about how their kid spends "nursing time" stroking mommy's face and babbling incoherently, about how their kids reach out and love their mommies.
My kid, through no fault of his little 3 1/2 week old self, doesn't really indicate that he loves me. Or that I really even exist.
If he stops crying when I pick him up, it's because he found comfort and he's pleased about being comforted. If he stops crying to nurse, its because he's pleased to have food. If he stops crying after a diaper change, it's because he's pleased to have discomfort taken out of his life. The most I get is a brief moment of eye contact before they lose focus on me. He's pleased with the things I give him, but he doesn't seem to realize that it's me who gives it. That there's an entity whose heart swells every time I look at him. Who's taking the time to meet these needs. Instead, he fusses and cries until his grievances in life are gone.
One day, and I know it will come, he'll see me and love me. He'll learn to come to me when he needs something and will trust me to take care of those needs. He'll come to me when he doesn't need something too. He'll come to me just to cuddle. He'll come to me just to babble about the little things a baby spends his time worrying about. And I just can't wait to be loved by the person I love so very very much.

But as I shove the pacifier into my son's mouth for the umpteenth time, I can't help but wonder if God feels the same way about many of His children.

My Birth Story - Rated G

At 41 weeks exactly, we went to the midwife to do a biophysical on the baby, which is essentially an ultrasound that checks on various things, to make sure everything's cool, that there's no need to panic and induce.
Well, my kid wasn't practice breathing, which is normally totally fine, but it was test time and they wanted to see that he could. So they poked and prodded and, in general, harassed the baby until he started breathing. Cool. Whatever. Did that have effects on the rest of this story? I don't know.
What I do know is that night my contractions which had never hurt me before, became back labor pains.
Back labor = not good
Just in case you didn't know or couldn't deduce.
So we waited and timed and what not and came to the hospital the next evening when we were about 3-5 minutes apart for at least 1 minute (be thinking more like 2...) for more than an hour.
I can listen and follow directions despite what my kindergarten teachers said about me!

We took a last minute picture at the house before we left.

Our present residence

The day before delivery belly shot

We get all the way to the hospital, 

(which for some reason didn't have a pre-registration system set up, so I had to figure out where to go and no one believed me when I said I wasn't being induced. ("Are you here to be induced?" "No." "You're here to be induced?" "No." "Why are you here?" "To have a baby..." It was ridiculous.) And no one understood where I was supposed to go even though I told them. And it took forever to be admitted. And then! to....)

find out we're not in active labor yet. Lame. But we were told that we shouldn't go home. It's been long enough after the due date and the back labor was noteworthy enough that I should hang out. The word c-section was mentioned with concern, so we got right down to making it to active labor. Because you can totally just will these things to happen. (Sure why not.) 2 hours later I was!! 

Then, many hours later, I hadn't progressed at all. 

Either my contractions weren't strong enough or the baby was too big. So the first step was dose me up with Pitocin (a drug to induce labor) which is known to be beyond painful, and after having gone over 12 hours in back labor, many of which were active labor, all night long, we decided to get the epidural. Then she told me that I needed an IV.

I did have a minor emotional breakdown then. The staff was really confused why I was so distraught at the idea when I taking everything like a champ for so long. My only other time getting an IV was during my D&C. I felt like I had failed again. (Because, you know, I was an emotional, hormonal, exhausted, pained woman who was told her plan wasn't going to work.) The midwife assured and reassured me that I had done well. That I had fought long and hard without anything to show for it and that was impressive in and of itself. 

So they shot me up. 

Now, I have an issue with experiencing numbness.... Namely? I hate it. So I wasn't in love with this epidural thing. But the contractions went by without my noticing until transition. Which was a nice change in pace and gave me a time to rest before transition. During that time, the pressure and the urge to push were very noticeable

Even just two days later it's hard to believe I was that big...

 The other problem was that the kids head was turned so he was looking at my side instead of my back, His ridiculously large head wasn't able to help me progress in labor with gravity backing it. So we needed to turn him. In order to do that, they cut off the circulation(? who knows whether or not I could feel my leg anymore. The epidural made everything numb. But I certainly felt like it was cutting off the circulation!) of one leg by placing a huge exercise ball shaped like a peanut on top of it and propping my other leg up on the ball. And somehow that managed to do the trick.

Doesn't this look like it would kill my lower leg? Yes. The answer is yes. 

There was a peanut shaped exercise ball between my legs to help turn the baby's head.

When my mom arrived, the midwife went on and on about how well he took care of me. She did not overstate. 

So after a few other positions and just some general waiting on contractions, I finally got through transition and was ready to push. 

This isn't pushing. This is the pressure of the contractions.

So what does pushing look like?

My mother and photographer was recruited to hold my leg as I pushed, so there are no further pictures of that subject matter. For better or worse... idk. 

They asked me if I wanted a mirror. 

Um. No. That's ok. Pretty sure I'm not looking so hot...

And then they told me to push. 

Generally, women under epidurals take two hours of pushing. I took half an hour. My midwife had changed to this Nigerian woman who kept going on about how I was such a strong woman in that nice accent. Let me tell you, in that accent you'll believe just about anything. 

For instance, I believe her when she told me that tugging on a sheet would be a good idea. I was supposed to hold the center and she would hold the two ends and throw her weight into the tug of war contest that randomly commenced in the middle of my labor. 

Great, now I'm going through labor and my hands hurt because the sheet cut into them. Awesome.  

But eventually the kid came out. They told me not to push. Something about projectile babies being a weapon and not permissible on hospital grounds... I don't know, I was pretty drugged up.

But they did keep telling me to look. So I'd look and there'd be this huge creepy bluish thing covered with whiteness coming out of me. So naturally, I'd look away. 

"Look, look!"

I'd look again. The scene had not become any less nauseating. 

No, thanks, nurse. 

So then they hand me this thing. 

Now, it may have been the drugs, but I have heard other moms speak of similar sentiments. They handed me that thing and I was just like: what is this? why are you handing this to me?

Drug induced confusion

Fatherhood awe

Still confused

Still awed

Both reactions together now

"Oh! My husband is happy!"

"Yay! We're kissing now!"

And then Jacob cut the cord. 

He was about as equally unimpressed with the "magic" of his moment as I was with mine. 

But still pretty stoked about the whole thing....

Baby James was starting to adapt a normal coloration and I was becoming more inclined...

And then they took him to a corner of the room to be weighed. 

Jacob asked me if I wanted him to stay with me. 

Of course, I want you to stay with me! I know you like that creepy looking huge thing for whatever reason, but you need to stay with me. 

So Jacob stayed and everybody else left, because no one's really interested in the mother after the baby comes out. 

And then he was weighed.

Aww... That's a way more attractive face!
(At the present point of the story, I was still confused.)

Now, this whole time, I was just in a state of: what? what is this? what did I go through this for? what is this thing?

And then they called out to me. 9lbs and 9 oz

And I lost it. 

That's what I had worked so hard for. 9lbs and 9 oz of baby that I carried for 10 months, that was reluctant to descend, reluctant to engage, but was here now.

Now, I was holding him. 

Ok, I don't look much more enthusiastic, but I'm also on drugs, so....

Daddy finally got his chance to hold the 9lbs 9oz bundle of joy

And that will be his life for the next very very long time. 

Baby James!!

So, yeah, that's my story. Without all the nitty gritty details that, frankly, I don't even want to know about....

I'm recovering well. We asked to leave the hospital the next day, and everyone was super chill about that until the last midwife to come on shift... who had spent all of five minutes with me and decided I was being incredible irresponsible for leaving so soon???

"Why?" And seriously, she made my confidence waver and I had my listening ears turned on to see what she had to say. 

"The first days home are hard!" "...how does delaying it help?"

"There won't be nurses to take care of you!" "Or to disrupt my sleep.... and I'm feeling great."

"You said your kid didn't latch great!" "Yeah, I'm not impressed but the lactation consultants seem to think it's ok."

And so on. 

It boiled down to "that's not how we do it" and I don't give that much weight. 

So we went home. 

Things have been great. This pregnancy ordeal was obviously just the beginning, but we're all doing well.

Working with Super Small Languages

I went to a mission's committee meeting and some questions were brought up about the size of the language group that we're going to work with. There was some concern pertaining to whether or not a small language group was worth the financial investment.
Now, I really hate these questions.
Because I don't really have a good answer for them.
Because I've never struggled with this issue.
I have really never been put off by the sizes of Papuan Language groups and wondered if they were too small to merit my attention. And why spend time formulating an answer to a question I've never had? Well, because other people, potential supporters, are now asking these questions and I should be able to respond in a way slightly more reassuring than gaping. So it's time to come up with something a bit more polished. And this is what I have:

Before we begin looking at my well formulated response, let's provide you with some numbers to orient yourself with. PNG has 800 languages and 7 million people. This inevitably results in some small language groups. Most languages have less than 3000 speakers. Only 8 have more than 50,000. African languages are way bigger. Jacob was going to work with a people group of 100,000 and that was considered on the smaller side.


All the languages we work with are small languages 
Bible Translation has been going on for a really long time. And our predecessors were super intelligent people who understood that translations into a larger language would have a greater impact globally. This is why we have the Bible in English and approximately 400 other languages. With these translations completed, 95% of the world can read the Bible in their heart language!
Which means that the remaining 5% people are divided among 6,700 languages.
At this point in the game, every language still needing a translation is a small language.

Now, one could point out that we should continue in the pattern of the translators who went before us, going to the largest languages groups first and working our way down, but allow me to tell you about the Within Our Reach Campaign. This is an inter-organizational effort committed to getting a translation project started in every language in the world by 2050. That is not that far away! Which means that which language project gets started first is negligible. (And I do know people who are looking at working with the aforementioned African language.)

So why should I be the one to work with a tiny language group?

1. I feel called to Papua New Guinea. 
   This is where God told me to be. And it has super small language groups. So I will probably work with a super small language. 
2. I don't have a problem working with a super small language group
   If future translators do struggle with the idea of investing a couple decades of their life to a super small language group, then I am glad that I left some small language groups for them to work with, as I don't have such a struggle. 
3. I like the idea of working with a super small language group. 
   As in, not only do I not mind, but if given a choice either way, I may even choose to work with a super small language. 
1. It makes my job easier. 
   When you have to develop a writing system for an entire people group or translate the Bible, there can be some differences in thought among the people group. Some people will have various preferences for alphabet choices or biblical key terms. Some preferences will be so strong that to ignore them will estrange some people from the work that we're doing. A smaller language group means fewer people to have problems with and an easier time sorting out the best way to proceed. (The language Jacob was looking at was actually larger when you considered the population in other countries. But the Bible has been translated for the speakers in Burkina Faso and the people of Togo refuse to use it. Now a whole new translation project must be started! Lame.)
2. Better discipleship
   When dealing with fewer people, you're better able to interact and build relationships throughout the people group. We'll be able to visit the various villages of the language group and have relationships with the church leaders, coaching them on how to study and apply the Scriptures and how to share that knowledge with the whole village. 

We know the parables that Jesus told of a shepherd leaving 99 of his sheep to find the one that wandered off. We don't know what Jesus would do should he have 7,000,000,000 sheep and 3000 went off in one direction while 100,000 went off in another direction, but I believe that I was pointed off to follow those 3000 and I'm going to trust that Jesus has a plan for the rest of the sheep. 

Don't Stick Your Finger in My Pregnancy

It has really gotten too much to bear! 

I don't know why people insist on doing it! Other than their claims "I'm just trying to be nice!" which overlooks a couple important points I will touch on in a moment. 

The only reason I've found that seems to make sense is that: pregnancy is beautiful. 

It's just beautiful. 

A woman round with child imminently about to go on a life-changing adventure. 

What could be greater than that!

And as a consequence, other people, strangers, want to be a part of that. They have a compulsive need to interact with the pregnant woman so they can feel that in some small way they've had a part of that beautiful pregnancy.  

I hate that. 

My pregnancy isn't something for strangers to snatch a piece of as they pass by! It's mine. Mine! Perhaps this sounds selfish, but, at times, it can feel very violating. Something that is mine is snatched from my possession and waved about, being soiled by other people's eyes, fingers, thoughts upon it. I hate it. 

But let's look back on that "just being nice/friendly/neighborly/whatever" argument. 

True story:

I manage to get out of the car in the parking lot of Walmart. My child's head is so low that rocking my pelvic bone (which is involved in, you know, walking) is super painful. (Also, rolling over in the middle of the night or trying to get out of bed which occurs every hour or so. So, sleep-wise, I'm not doing so hot.) I stand up and waddle inside looking to be in and out quickly as quickly as possible. But, of course, I have just stood up. Which means my first stop in Walmart is at the lavatory. Gross. 

I am out of the lavatory and looking for my husband, who went to get a cart. We have just been reunited and are about to be off into the bowels of the beast when a woman comes up behind me, steps up just a pace in front of me, before extending her arm at me and says, "You ready to go?!"

...Who are you? Go where? Do I know you?

"You ready to go?!" she gesticulates at my stomach. 

"Ah ha ha!" I force out of my mouth as I've finally realized that she's talking about my pregnancy. But this one is worse than most. It appears that she wants me to dialogue with her about my pregnancy. 

"You're pregnant! You ready to go!?!"

At this point, I turned around and walked away. 

My mommy always said that if I didn't have anything nice to say, not to say anything at all.

Behind me I hear her shout at my husband, "I was just trying to be nice!"

Ok. Nothing you have done here, by any stretch of the imagination, was nice. I am tired and trying to get out of here. And you, you are not only getting in my way but acting like my pregnancy is yours to comment on. You're a stranger!

Now, in sharp juxtaposition to this, on the same Walmart outing, which is to say, my mood and condition is exactly the same, if not worsened by the above encounter, I had the following encounter: 

Our items were collected and we were off to the checkout line. Between us and the line was a table for cable equipped with cable salespeople. Generally, when we pass this table, we say "We don't own a TV" and keep on walking as the salespeople slink back to their table waiting to pounce on the next passerby. This time the call to us wasn't for cable, but a small request to explain our intentions with the contents of our cart. 

I looked down at our cart and back at them. 

"Pumpkin Spice Pancakes!"

And a dialogue commenced. Pumpkin. Fall. Other baked goods. Until finally:

"May I ask when you're due?"

"Oct 14th!"

"That's a good time, you know, with..." and more talk on the joys of fall before any attention was redirected at my pregnancy.

These people didn't feel like my pregnancy belonged to them to call out to me as it pleased them! These people felt like I, as a person, was worth investing time for (an albeit short) relationship with me. The comments about my pregnancy weren't a desperate attempt to stick their fingers in the beauty of pregnancy. They were a furthering of our relationship.  

I may never see Elizabeth and James the cable salespeople again, but I will remember them fondly. 

Falling in the middle of the spectrum, lies our encounter at Moe's:

I was standing up to leave, when a mother with approximately a throng of children looks up from her food and says to me, "Wow! You're about to pop!"

It required nothing of me and I continued to leave. But as I was walking to my car, I just had to wonder: why? Why was it so important to you to tell me that? Why couldn't you have commented on my pregnancy to your husband after I left? (It is, of course, the desire to stick her fingers in my pregnancy. It apparently doesn't count unless the pregnant lady knows you've commented.) But pointing out my expanding size maybe fun for you, full of nostalgia maybe, but for me it's a 20 lb bowling ball strapped underneath my skin. It is actually not nice to comment. 

To all of you who claim that your finger sticking is "just being nice", holding a pregnant woman hostage to the requirements of social niceties to strangers is not nice. We did not leave the house to be hassled by strangers who "know" the gender of our child based off how our stomachs look or who want to know how ready we are to be done with this stage of life. And while we pregnant women are aware that you didn't know that you were the 15th person today to inquire about our bump, you probably are. And that's just too many. 

So instead of "being nice" by commenting on how it looks like I'm real close now (at 7 months pregnant), be real nice in quiet practical ways. Let us cut in the checkout or bathroom line. Slip us a $5 giftcard to the store we're shopping at and wish us well. Or simply pull your cart over to the side while we're coming down the aisle. 

(I do believe than an exception to the above is when a pregnant woman comes to an event intended for socialization. Here, she did leave the house to talk with strangers! So, here it's ok, but remember you'll be better received if you start a relationship with her first, then her impending bundle of poop.)