I have to confess, I'm guilty of the crime of bump touching myself. I didn't realise how strongly women felt about this, this desire strangers have to fondle pregnant women's bumps until I read a thread on Rollercoaster.ie where the practice was driving women mad. And I do understand - it feels horribly intimate to have a stranger come up and touch your unborn baby - like they're reaching into your womb... and insult is added to injury by the way people feel compelled to give you random patronising advice, or worse yet, tell you horror stories of their own or other people's labours.
A little tangent - when I was first pregnant, and nearly due, I told a crowd of my father's wife's middle class lawyer's wife type friends at his wedding ,that I was having a homebirth - cacklingly, they hissed 'you'll be begging for an epidural!' at me, like a coven of bad fairies left our of the party. And at a recent children's party, a friend's friend told me the gory details of her first birth - the 10lb baby, the doctor pulling at the ventouse with one leg up on the table til it slipped, and blood spraying the wall.
But I've also heard stories of women giving birth naturally to 10lb and 12lb babies without a tear, without an epidural, etc, etc, so I choose to believe that I can be like them, thank you.
But back to the point - I've always been obsessed with babies, and other people's pregnancies come into that arena - my mother once suggested, if you want Jo to come visit, just have a baby. Well it's true - I'm so drawn to the magic of pregnancy and birth, and I commit the sin of feeling a sense of shared ownership and responsibility for the mother and child - hence the bump-feeling. It seems to me to be sort of like giving and receiving a blessing at once.
And for me, as a person who is usually ashamed of her fat and wobbly stomach, the thought of someone touching it is humiliating and horrifying - but in pregnancy, it becomes fine - there's a lovely solid bump - it's quite liberating to be able to allow people to touch your belly without embarrassing you both with acres of soft flab. I also quite like the feeling of becoming public that pregnancy and labour brings. That you can stop feeling ashamed of your nakedness, that it has a purpose. Doctors or midwives will see you, but with a view to birthing your baby ultimately, and you can confidently participate in that. similarly breast feeding forces you to see yourself differently, and you can bare yourself with someone else's needs in mind. Physically I find the whole thing very liberating (in direct contrast to the physical limitations of pregnancy, which are really frustrating me. Breathing, sleeping, getting up... ugh).
Also, during pregnancy I crave touch much more than usual - unfortunate for me as my husband is pyhsically undemonstrative and I can't afford massages :( Even cooking at the oven or grill feels great (apart from the aching feet and back1) as the heat just feels so wonderful on my crotch and bump!
But at the end of the day, you have to Ask First - a refusal shouldn't offend. One woman suggested she was going to start grabbing the boobs of women who touched her bump without asking - eek! That would get the point across, alright. And I do remember getting pissed off with the French colleague whose wife was pregnant giving me endless, censorious advice - climb out of my womb already, dude - though I think it was because he was a man, to be honest, perhaps that's really not fair....
When I was pregnant, my cranio-sacral osteopath said that she got a sense of silvery, sparkling energy from the baby, who she thought was a girl - she was right on both counts, I think. And I have to say, I once put my hand on my friend's bump without warning, I think surprising her (sorry Deirdre!) but I was rewarded with the most incredible sense of that same sparkling, electric energy, quite incredible. I'd love to know if I could feel it again. But I'll have to choose my test subjects carefully.
1 comment:
Love my pregnant, love sex when I'm pregnant, I'm lucky my husband is very open with his emotions but even he got sick of me...I was demanding sex..he hid downstairs! really! I wouldn't toch a bump without asking but I know what you mean about the energy, it's there, and once you've been pregnant and you understand what it means to have a new person growing inside you, it's hard to resist touching the new life.
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