Coming Out Pregnant!

longer look in my face, or at my boobs. They stare straight ahead and glance sideways at my protruding stomach every ten seconds or so. Not one person has taken the plunge and asked outright if I was pregnant. Not even when I have been sick, and spitting up in Ziploc bags, did anyone query why I was hurling into a plastic bag two minutes before I got into my apartment. People just talked about the weather, or the economy, or the fact that the new white people are complaining that the heat in the building is too high and now management has turned down the heat and the rest of us Black folk are freezing.

Finally I got tired of the weird glances and started explaining, unasked, that I was 4 months pregnant, or 5 months along, or expecting a baby in January, and that I am on bed rest and that I have been vomiting for the entire 7 months I have been knocked up. People try to hide how surprised they are. I can see them swallow the questions and blink back how confused they feel. I almost enjoy seeing them journey from "Aren't you a lesbian?" to "Are you going with men now?" to "Aww, shizzle, I can't ask her any of those questions so I might as well smile and nod."

One woman I told shrieked, in an eerily squeaky voice, "Lord Jesus! I dunno why this elevator smelling so stuffy these days. I think I go make a complaint to management about it today." Then she told me she liked my shoes and hastily exited the lift.

The silence is immediate when I happen upon a group of tenants gathered in the lobby. Everyone nods and waves and watches as I slowly waddle my way to the car parked on the street out front.

Most of the other LGBT faces offer up congratulations, until they find out I'm doing it without a partner or co-parent. Lips are pursed. Sighs are delivered. And then silence ensues. They don't approve. Some of the braver ones go on to say, "Well, I would never choose to do it that way -- not that I think anything is wrong with it. It just doesn't seem right to me. But I suppose if you believe you can do it..." That long pause is usually followed with questions about why I didn't adopt. Apparently,