Bring your own towel

Okay, so you know how when you learn a new word suddenly you start to see it everywhere? Or how you never noticed Ug boots before until your sister tells you about the pink pair she bought but then resold on Ebay, and now every person you pass on the street is wearing them? It's the same thing with preggos. I can't remember seeing a single preg before, but now, I swear, it's like the entire female population is with wee one. We're taking over. I'd watch out if I were you, we're an unpredictable lot.

The other night, Mike and I took a walk to get some dessert at my favorite Italian café (Besides the killer snacks, it's my favorite because it stays open later than anything else in town, including the gas stations. And when I say "late" I'm talking sometimes 10 or 11:00 o'clock! I know, hold me back. Town on fire). It's at this point that I'll try not to mention how I really wanted the raspberry mousse covered in a perfect dome of dark chocolate shell but got the chocolate cheesecake instead cauz we were splitting and that was Mike's choice (Don't let anyone tell you marriage isn't about compromise.). So, afterwards, we started home and ran into a new shop that had apparently just moved in - upscale la-la preggo clothes. Preggo mannequins and everything.

I'm just too practical to look good pregnant. I can't bring myself to buy clothes I know I'll only wear for a couple months. Besides a couple shirts and one pair of official preggo pants, I've pretty much made my way over the last eight months with elastic waisted skirts I already owned and some drawstring pants I collected at garage sales and Goodwill, the cost of which totals maybe $20. Yesterday I was wearing an outfit someone passed down to me - what amounted to pajama pants and an enormously oversized turtleneck with wide horizontal stripes - classically good-looking, smart fashion with just that hint of sexy.

I see the other preggos. The ones still going to jobs outside the house on a regular basis. The cute ones in the cute clothes, who have WAY more patience than I do and so visit that bloody maternity clothing store or some other belly fashion center on a regular basis. I'd like to look good now, but I'd rather save my money to buy a killer wardrobe when I get my other body back. So I guess that means I'm willing to look about 80% of the time like Humpty Dumpty and the other 20% like that guy I used to see sitting at bus stops all around town who always scared me a little and who showed up at our garage sale and bought all our art prints for 50 cents each.

There is another solution. Naked. I think pregnant women should be allowed to walk the hell around naked. It should just be what we do. I'm supposed to be bonding with my body, no? My body temperature is higher than normal, right?

A friend of mine was showing me an album/scrapbook she'd made for her daughter who is in her 20s. She pointed laughing at one picture of herself. "That was the only picture I could find of when I was pregnant. Everyone should have a naked pregnant picture."

In the living room of my midwife's house (which is where I have my appointments) there are more pictures and paintings of naked pregnant women than I am SURE most people see in their lifetimes.

We have a funny relationship with naked. Ever read David Sedaris' story "Naked"? (If you don't know Sedaris go out right now and get his stuff. Start with "Me Talk Pretty One Day" but do your Kegels first because you will likely want to pee your pants.) There's a recurring line in his naked story about bringing your own towel. It takes place in a nudist retreat. Just read it.

At a little gathering not long ago a co-worker of Mike's was telling the story of how she used to work as a water tester in Maryland. When she started, there was one stop on her route that no one had been to in ages - the nudist colony. She set out for the nudists, test tubes in hand, on an extremely cold fall day. When she got there, she told us, they were wearing only sweatshirts and sneakers. Now that's dedication to your cause.

The naked pregnant form is wild, unique, dare I say, beautiful. A world in which stretch marks beat out horizontal stripes would be one I could live in.