No Third Buttock Here!

I've had a few questions about a recent Facebook status:

Natalie Oliver "has developed a rule of thumb about conversational boundaries: keep it out of the strike zone (shoulders to knees). There's nothing in that area that needs to be discussed with anyone you don't know well (still working on a definition of "know well"). Clothing, accessories, and physical features of the shins, feet, arms (which can be raised above shoulder level), shoulders, neck, and head can be reasonable topics. Short skirts and chest tattoos are not. Ideas (head) are fine; emotions (heart, kidneys, or wherever yours are) are not. Features within the strike zone, no matter how salient, are off limits: third buttock, large gut, dorsal spines, vestigial tail, etc. That these features may stand out from the body enough to enter another's personal space is irrelevant if they are in the strike zone. I wonder if wearing outlandish head- and foot-wear can encourage even people without boundaries to keep conversations appropriate as long as the accessories don't draw attention to a feature in the strike zone. Obviously, wearing bunny ears or furry slippers when you have a fluffy tail is not going to help."

The post is written this way because I have not disclosed my pregnancy on Facebook. Last time people got the pregnancy message but not the dead baby message and sent unintentionally hurtful congratulations. So it's best not to tell Facebook until I have good news to share. I had something to say about pregnancy, but didn't want to say it was about pregnancy. So I made it ambiguous and absurd. It's possible to read this and think it was inspired when someone commented on my breasts or the way my pants drape from my ample posterior. Or it can be read that Natalie finally snapped and sees people's dorsal fins and bunny ears but keeps herself from commenting about them to strangers. As long as the post didn't create pregnancy questions, I was happy.

The "third buttock" has cause the most comment. The "third buttock" is a reference to a Monty Python sketch. When I wrote about the "third buttock," it was just a weird mid-body feature to throw into an illustrative list. Now that I think about it, the sketch is about inappropriate topics of conversation, which is exactly what my status post was about.

Inappropriate conversation has been on my mind a lot lately because the beginning of the semester has brought increased opportunities to socialize with people who haven't seen me since May. I understand that my pregnancy is a surprise to most of the people at university functions. We didn't tell anyone I was pregnant until after the semester ended last May. In fact, I was the one who told the chair of the English department (kind of Matt's boss), and I only told her about three weeks ago when she called to see if I could teach this semester. Pretty much only family, church, and blog readers knew I was pregnant. Of course when people see me in small talk situations, my pregnancy is the apparent answer to "what have you been up to this summer?" :) So those people want to talk about it. But I don't want to talk about it. At 36 weeks, I am now obviously very pregnant. And in general, people see my belly as a conversation starter: waitresses, cashiers, people who stop by the church I work at, etc. I understand that people are just being friendly; however, I still don't want to talk about being pregnant.

The status post came about when I realized how weird it is to start a conversation with a stranger about pregnancy. Are reproductive organs a polite topic of conversation? Should I inquire about ovaries and scrotums when I meet people? (No.) Then why is the activity of my uterus something to talk about? Are bulges on bodies a good topic of conversation? Should anyone go up to a stranger and say, "Nice goiter" or "That is the most massive pimple I have ever seen."? Is it OK to start a conversation with a woman by saying, "I see you have large breasts. Did you inherit them from your grandmother (like me!) or did you get a boob job?" (No.) Then why must people comment on my belly? So it occurred to me that there really is a general tendency to keep polite conversation away from the area between a person's shoulders and knees, unless a woman is pregnant. I have theories about why people consider pregnant women of public interest, which I will not go into at this time. But I am a private person, not public property, and I wish that people would respect that. 

It doesn't help that the biggest reason people say something is that they want to share in my happiness. And because of that, they ask me, "Are you excited?" It's like people who say, "How have you been?" and don't actually want an answer. The question is nearly rhetorical because any answer other than "yes" would make the asker very, very uncomfortable, and making someone uncomfortable is ungracious, and I try to be gracious. But I also try to be honest. And just saying "yes" is not honest. The real answer is that I'm too scared to be excited. It's all I can do to be cautiously optimistic and hopeful. Letting myself be excited means having expectations and is potentially setting myself up for pain. Ironically, the people interested in the contents of my uterus would be uncomfortable if I shared intimate feelings like those. :) I tend to say, "Sure," meaning "my feelings are positive," which is honest. I don't know how other people interpret it, but it doesn't make the conversation intimate or awkward, so it's working for me.

Thank you again to family and friends who are still respecting my wish to talk about pregnancy as little as possible. As you can see it's even more important to me now that acquaintances and strangers want to talk to me. Repeated conversations drain my energy quickly, and I really have other things that need my energy right now. We're finishing up some cleaning and organizing at home. I'm working part time. I'm trying to work ahead on bulletins for both my churches to cover my coming absence. My garden is getting almost no attention. And as I've blogged before, taking care of myself is a part-time job all by itself even when I'm not pregnant. I've found that recently I've got three modes of wakefulness: hurried (which causes Braxton-Hicks contractions that force me to slow down), busy (which is reasonable and productive), and resting (which lets Elsie play for a while). As soon as I sit down and put my feet up, Elsie wiggles into position for a back rub. Resting is my favorite, but I've got to stay busy or hurried becomes necessary.