Patent pending

This is such an awkward stage, especially this go around when I'm showing sooner at this point than I had previously. Even though I can obviously tell I'm pregnant, and if I held my shirt tighter (like in my pregnancy photos) you all could too, but it's not so much that it would scream pregnancy to most people who don't know. Thus, my frumpy, chunky in the mid section look is less than cute right now. People will see me with a seven month old and naturally assume I just never got rid of the baby weight...it's not a good look! For the record, I did take off a decent amount of baby weight. Not all of it, but really, I was smaller at one point in these past seven months. I swear. Someone back me up. Anyone?


I'd like to invent something that expectant moms could wear to let people know they are pregnant when it's not obvious, or maybe even when it is. Something like those "Pregnant, Not Fat" shirts but slightly more discreet while getting the point across. Maybe a bracelet. A different color bracelet for each trimester and pretty soon, it would become standard that if you're wearing a yellow bracelet (not like the Lance Armstrong kind, different...and cuter), you're in your first trimester. In your second, your bracelet is orange, and third, red. This is a rough draft; I'd make the whole concept cooler, but wouldn't this make us all more comfortable?



I'd place ads in magazines from Sports Illustrated to Cosmo, in shows from CSI to Oprah to Sports Center, online and on the radio to promote awareness of their significance.

Nothing worse than asking someone who isn't pregnant when they are expecting. Actually, yes there is: being the person who was just asked. Sorry if this is a repeat, but this brings me back to a few days after I had Mirabella when the nice, seemingly new grandpa was admiring his just hatched grandson or granddaughter from the hallway looking into the baby nursery at the hospital. I was still struggling to walk after my c-section and was walking down the hall past him. He turned from the nursery glass to look at me and with a proud new grandpa grin on his face said, "Not much longer for you!" With a gleam in his eye, he was so happy and cheerful for me. All I could do was smile and say, "Yep!" After all, he was only trying to be sweet. I thought it was hilarious actually and couldn't wait to get back into my room to have a good laugh with Jeff, until I finally got there and started crying before I could get the words out to explain what had happened. By my own admission, I still looked fully pregnant then, but hearing I did from a total stranger, hit me. In the stomach.

In light of this memory, I think there would need to be a fourth bracelet. It could be a multicolored/confetti/polka dot/celebration looking one to let people know you have just brought life into this world and could use a break from people wondering if you're pregnant or not (or when you are going to start hitting the gym and laying off the cookies). Good for one year. Hmmm, this one might be my favorite!

I know I'd feel a whole lot better seeing that kid I knew from high school right now (the one I knew and who knew me but we didn't know each other well enough to seek each other out for a chat at the mall) if he knew why my belly was swollen and possibly a screaming orange second trimester bracelet would do the trick!

Heck, it could be an entire jewelry line. Maybe a collection of hats and gloves for the winter months. Um, maybe not. I can picture it, the poor guy pleading for forgiveness, "But ma'am, I'm sorry! I saw an ad in SI and I just thought..." Scratch that. That one might turn out to be disastrous.

Jewelry it is. Brilliant.