Judged

In the grand scheme of things, I have had it easy during this pregnancy in terms of other people saying or doing stupid things. Very few people - and no strangers - have put their hands on my belly without permission. Hardly anyone has said, "Wow, you look really pregnant!" or, nearly as bad, "Wow, you don't look pregnant at all!" And very few people have insulted me with some smug, amused variation on, "Haha, you have no idea what you're in for."

But last weekend, I got judged because I'm pregnant. Two friends and I were waiting for a table at a restaurant, and while we waited I ordered an O'Doul's. When we were seated, the hostess looked at me (rather, my bulging belly), looked at my bottle of (fake) beer, and said, most disapprovingly, "Is that a beer?" I said it was non-alcoholic, so not really a beer. She responded, "Oh, good, since, you know..." as she gestured between my belly and the beer.

Oh, NO SHE DID NOT. She did NOT just pass judgment on me! While the truth was I was drinking a perfectly "legal" non-alcoholic beverage, what would she have done or said to me if I'd said, "Yep, a big, fat, alcoholic BEER"? Would I have gotten a lecture from her? And if that were the case, would I have decked her? Yes, yes, I probably would have.

Anyway, the incident has lost some of its rage-inducing luster by now. But it still rankles me. I don't know why. I suppose just because the idea that it was none of her business what I was drinking. And she doesn't know me. She doesn't know what I do every day to protect this baby inside me on a day-to-day basis. She knows nothing about me. But she still thinks it's her place to even remotely suggest that she knows better than I do how to be pregnant with MY child. Until I'm pregnant with her baby, she can keep her mouth shut.

At least the dinner was good.