BY YVONNE HUGHES
Yesterday the bank manager of my local branch asked me if I was ‘expecting.’ I’m not.
Now this is a risky game whichever way you play it. I actually can’t think of any circumstances where it’s okay to ask that, unless you’re about to get on an x-ray table or a rollercoaster.
And if the question wasn’t bad enough, when my reaction obviously told her I wasn’t pregnant, she followed it up by saying ‘Don’t worry, I have a stomach too.’
Okay, so she basically just called me fat. Enough to put a dampener on your spirits, surely? But for many women, a careless comment like that can trigger much deeper pain, because there are often bigger problems below the surface.
One in six couples are infertile, and one in every three women over 35 will have fertility problems. It is also estimated that one in every five pregnancies will end in miscarriage. This makes these big issues, but sadly very common too. Common enough to apply common sense to.
Questions like ‘are you pregnant?’ have no place in small talk. And the same goes for ‘when are you going to have kids/another child?’ There are no prizes for guessing, and trust me, your friends will tell you when they’re ready.
There are countless reasons why having a baby might not be a possibility. In my case, breast cancer treatment messed up our plans for no.2. It also messed up any chances of getting back into a bikini. Nothing to put in the top bit, and an excess below the waist. Yes, my friends, weight gain, rather than weight loss, is the more common side effect of treatment. A good complementary look to go with bald.