Quiz! You see before you...

[metaphortunate]

When you see a person who is visibly pregnant, you feel:

• vaguely grossed out and embarrassed for her, as though you were seeing someone loudly hawk up phlegm or perform some other unattractive and probably sticky biological function in public.
  
• a protective tenderness. You want to offer her a seat, or get her a snack, or stand between her and the person who’s about to try to touch her belly.
  
• a creeping biological horror, as if watching a video of Cordyceps fungus infesting an ant, changing its behavior, killing it, and erupting from the back of its head.
  
• like giving her a high-five!
  
• a strange, slight jealousy. You don’t want to be pregnant; and yet.
  
• an impotent terror, as if watching someone trip and fall towards a counter and reflexively put out their hand down into the sink where a garbage disposal is running. You want to shriek NOOOO! STOP! and you know it is far, far too late.
  
• welcoming. Another member has joined the club; you’ll have so much to talk about, and now there will be someone else who always has wet wipes that you can borrow.
  
• a jealousy so strong it tastes bitter. If she already has children, you might have to just look away; keep your face still.
  
• pleased that you might have found someone who could use your outgrown newborn clothes, or baby swing.
  
• irrationally terrified that she might break her water or throw up or something and you’ll have to deal with it.

ETA:

• "Better you than me, sister."

Comments

[crystalpyramid]

Mild jealousy/protectiveness. Although I'm guessing that question was rhetorical.

[metaphortunate]

Not at all! Curious what people might say.

[dr_memory]

• a nigh-overwhelming urge to rub her belly, which I stifle because duh, but it will be a buzzing in the back of my head for like another hour. Biology is weird. And awesome. And gross. And amazing.

Also a bit of the protectiveness. :)

[metaphortunate]

It is all those things!

[resonant]

The second, coupled with a vague nostalgia for my no-longer-active reproductive system, even though I wasn't using it any more.

[amaebi]

That I'm seeing a person. I might feel some protectiveness if the person looks as if they could use some respite or relief and I can provide some.

[lovepeaceohana]

Protectiveness toward strangers who are pregnant. Friends get protectiveness plus a smidge of jealousy (because I don't want more kids OR another pregnancy, but dammit, babies are adorable - thankfully we're friends so I'll probably get to at least hold the baby at some point!) plus welcoming and happiness at having found someone who might be able to use all these outgrown clothes and shoes and toys.

Also I do sometimes think about what might happen if a pregnant person's water breaks in my vicinity but my emotional response isn't terror, it's even more protectiveness and determination to safely deliver this baby lol.

[metaphortunate]

That's kind of great. :)

[laurashapiro]

Protective tenderness + impotent terror, usually.

[rosefox]

Sympathy.

[norah]

This. And a vague glad-it's-not-me. I get the weird jealousy when I see people with wee babies, but not for pregnant women.

[kalmn]

Stranger or friend? Stranger, strange slight jealousy, down from bitter jealousy. Friend, slight jealousy which goes into protectiveness. More quickly if I knew they were trying.

[katarik]

If I have an emotional reaction to a visibly pregnant person, I don't know it. Mostly 'oh, that looks uncomfortable, I continue not to want kids, hope ze wants the thing' and continue my business.

[veejane]

My vague terror is of the "what if she falls forward and something gets smooshed?" variety. (I ride public transit.) But really, I get as far as whether the bellybutton is an outie or not and that's all.

[metaphortunate]

Yes, that too! The JESUS, DON'T FALL.

[vera_l]

Vaguely like smiling at them.

I'll get protective/tender in some circumstances (standing up on a bus, jerk trying to invade their personal space, etc.), but that impulse doesn't activate if they're walking along looking untroubled.

[cahn]

Well, jealous, at this point. (Somewhere in between the "strange, slight jealousy" and the "so strong it tastes bitter," and mixed in with a fierce hope and protectiveness against anything that could possibly go wrong with the baby.) Oh well.

Interestingly, through my sister's current pregnancy, my sister and I have discovered that my mom's reaction is pretty much exactly "vaguely grossed out and embarrassed for her." Which is totally weird given that she was pregnant four times herself! And saw me a bunch of times during my pregnancy! IDEK.

[metaphortunate]

Sorry about that. The jealousy suuuuuucked.

[serene]

None of the above. Usually something like "Ooh, she's hot." Well, you asked.

[jae]

Yeah, sometimes it's this for me, too, admittedly.

-J

[loligo]

On a personal level, it's halfway between "welcoming" and "impotent terror". Like, "Soon you will be one of us -- and there's no going back! And then you'll KNOW WHAT IT'S LIKE."

But my whole job is helping new parents who are in stressful circumstances make that transition to parenthood as successfully as possible. So at work I really focus on the positives -- not in a fake, gaslighting, "Isn't this great?" sort of way, but in the way of helping people find and name the parts of the experience that are the most meaningful for them, and then helping them build on that core of meaning. So my work has actually helped me find a more positive view of pregnancy and parenting than I would have had otherwise. I mean, not that I don't love my kids, they're awesome and all, but becoming a parent did things to my brain that I still have not completely recovered from, and this has been a quarter of my fucking life now.

[metaphortunate]

Yeah, it's weird how relentlessly focusing on the positive actually helps! My inner Goth teenager wants that to be fake bullshit, but it really isn't.

[julian]

I'm vaguely sure I go, "Oh, cool," and go on my way.

(Sometimes I want to kill strangers with my brain who are being too excessive at them, though.)

[ironed_orchid]

If it's someone I know, then a reason to knit adorable tiny clothes.

If it's a random person: slightly protective, slightly glad it isn't me.

[brownbetty]

Kind of a fascination? Like, watching cordyceps, but in a nerdy way?

Like, I have to restrain myself from telling them what their immune system is probably DOING RIGHT NOW.

[metaphortunate]

Don't tell them what their immune system is doing right now. They're liable to drip snot on you.

[houseboatonstyx]

The worst negatives. Any lurkers dare to admit it?

[metaphortunate]

Is LJ/DW still big enough to have lurkers? I think it might just be us here. :)

[jedusaur]

I double-check my assumptions, make sure the "that person is pregnant" judgment isn't a jump to conclusions, and then don't think about it beyond that unless they seem like they need help. I definitely don't compare the pregnant person to myself at all. Pregnancy isn't something I would ever consider for myself, so it's not a state I bother to actively either identify with or distance myself from.

(Anymore. I did actively distance myself from it when I was being told from all directions that I was wrong and would want to be pregnant at some point, but I guess people were more comfortable being that kind of asshole when I was a teenager and therefore clearly unable to function without everyone's unsolicited life coaching.)

[metaphortunate]

Welp, if you miss all that unsolicited coaching, pregnancy is an excellent way to get right back there!

[thistleingrey]

I offer a seat, but it's fairly neutral--I don't feel more protective or tender than I do towards someone who's carrying a cane or visibly older than I, and I offer them seats, too (bus or at an event).

Hmm, fairly neutral in general? None of the bullet points really pings. Some of them might if I knew the person and/or why she's pregnant (by choice or not), but random sighting = I certainly wouldn't ask about that.

[wordweaverlynn]

Protective, tender, and (at this point) a little sorrow and jealousy. There have been points in my life when the sight of a pregnant woman or a newborn baby hurt so much I couldn't look.

[metaphortunate]

I really hated the jealous time in my life.

[antisoppist]

"Is it her first? Poor thing doesn't know what's going to hit her and I am not going to tell her".

[norah]

AHAHAHA. Yes, they'll find out soon enough.

[puzzlement]

Some combination of "vaguely grossed out and embarrassed", "creeping biological horror", "welcoming another member of the club" and "better you than me". (Context: I've had two full term pregnancies. I find it almost endlessly fascinating, but also mostly unpleasant, and I specifically find pregnancy unpleasant, labour and birth I am more positive about.)

[metaphortunate]

Wow. I considered pregnancy no fun, but it was a hell of a lot better than labor and birth, I thought!

[liv]

Mostly the impotent terror one, though probably not quite as bad as what you're describing here. Definitely some element of being relieved that someone else is going through this, not me, but I genuinely want pregnancy, childbirth and parenting to be as positive as possible for the people that do choose to do it, so to an extent I am thinking of the visibly pregnant person as a sister and somebody I would be willing to support if called on.

[metaphortunate]

Yay!

[serriadh]

All of these ones (yes, some of them might seem to be contradictory).
a protective tenderness. You want to offer her a seat, or get her a snack, or stand between her and the person who’s about to try to touch her belly.
a creeping biological horror, as if watching a video of Cordyceps fungus infesting an ant, changing its behavior, killing it, and erupting from the back of its head.
a strange, slight jealousy. You don’t want to be pregnant; and yet.
irrationally terrified that she might break her water or throw up or something and you’ll have to deal with it.

[metaphortunate]

Some of us can feel a lot of things at the same time. :)