“Oh my God,” I whispered to my husband, shaking my head in shame. “I can never show my face again.”
This was over a year ago and we were at a downtown restaurant to attend a surprise birthday party for one of his colleagues. I was congregating with a group of women, many of which were obviously in the prime of their child-bearing lives, as evidenced by several big, non-beer bellies in the group. The conversation mostly revolved around due dates.
“So when are you due?” everyone eagerly wanted to know from each of the pregnant ladies.
This is where I went horribly wrong. I was so caught up in the excitement of the fresh, new, young motherhood on display in the room, that I turned to the woman standing next to me and committed a cardinal social sin.
“So when are you due?” I asked.
Her expression sank. “I’m not pregnant,” she said, her cheeks instantly reddening.
What was wrong with me? Were the synapses in my brain misfiring? I knew very well that one should NEVER ask a woman if she’s pregnant, unless the evidence is so concrete that you think you might need newspapers and hot water any minute.
I don’t usually make mistakes like that. I am a very empathetic person, deeply sensitive to the thoughts and feelings of others. And besides, she wasn’t overweight, she had a nice figure. The only minor clue that suggested she might be pregnant was that she was wearing leggings and a loose blouse that I never would have thought was a maternity outfit if we weren’t standing amongst other maternity-clothed women at that moment.
But when she explained that she wasn’t pregnant, my brain just couldn’t process that piece of critical information quick enough for me to backtrack before my runaway mouth kept on going. As if things couldn’t get worse, I reached out, patted her belly, and asked, “Are you sure?”
A split second later all my lagging synapses connected in my brain and I realized that I just patted her belly and made a further ass of myself. She looked humiliated.
“Well, I know I’ve gained a little weight…” she started to say, fighting back tears.
“No! No! No!,” I blurted, horrified at my offensiveness. “You’re beautiful and perfect! I am so sorry! I don’t know why I asked that!”
I kept apologizing over and over, desperate, but unable to amend for my inconsiderate outburst.
I truly felt so terrible, I thought I should be banned from all future congregations that included women, child-bearing age or not. I expected that my husband’s colleague and his wife would justifiably run and hide the next time they saw me and I wouldn’t have blamed them.
So I was very surprised many months later when the couple made a deliberate effort to track me down at a large event to show me that she was actually pregnant. They were both so sweet and gracious. They laughed and hugged me and said they wanted to be sure I knew. This time I wanted to cry.
I learned that this wonderful, forgiving couple had a baby this past week and I couldn’t be happier for them. In fact, I’m going to send a big bunch or flowers or balloons to not only congratulate them, but to jokingly remind them that I CALLED IT!
But after that, I am never going to open my big, fat mouth again.
***
Ann K. Howley is the award-winning author of Confessions of a Do-Gooder Gone Bad.
Please visit her website at http://annkhowley.com/#about-ann
photo credit: <a href=”https://www.flickr.com/photos/notoriousjen/4108935836/”>JenGallardo</a> via <a href=”http://photopin.com”>photopin</a> <a href=”http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/”>cc</a>