I mean that thing where young wives get together to chat good-naturedly behind each others' backs and speculate endlessly about who is, or who will soon be, pregnant.
An individual can be entered on PregnancyWatch on the basis of meeting one or more of the following criteria:
1. Her youngest child has reached the age of 12 months (women with three or more existing children are allotted 24 months or more) (but not much more). If desired, spacing of previous children can be taken into account.
2. She mentions off-hand that she isn't feeling well.
3. She mentions off-hand that she is tired.
4. She is seen snacking at church.
5. She hasn't been pregnant for a while but it can reasonably be attributed to her or her husband being in grad school AND said grad school will be finished within the academic year.
6. Her stomachal area has expanded in a suspicious manner.
7. If she has no existing children, she can enter PregnancyWatch after 12 months of marriage.
As you can see, before I started grad school, I was on PregnancyWatch for any number of reasons. And I hated it. I felt like I always had to suck in my tummy at church and social functions so that nobody's radar tripped on item #6. I had to watch what kind of shirts and dresses I wore because if any of them had anything even approaching an empire waist, it was like wearing a giant placard that had PREGNANT written all over it. I once made the (total rookie) mistake of snacking at church and it was like I could see the rumors forming in real time.
In reality, I was just hungry. Three hours is a long time to be at church, ok?
What gets me is that I was once so naive as to be entirely unaware of PregnancyWatch, even when I was on it after Miriam turned one year old, then two years old, then 2.5 years old. At that point, I honestly thought no one suspected that I was 15 weeks (or whatever) along with Magdalena and that I was so sneaky for concealing it until then. In reality, they probably all suspected, and were just waiting for me to crack. Sigh.
Being a grad student earns me special exemption status and it is glorious. I guess I can stop sucking in my pooch-of-stretched-out-skin-that-doesn't-seem-to-go-anywhere-after-birthing-two-children now.
Ahhhh, that feels good.