Growing on up.

Something has happened to my tummy.  At the very top, right under my ribcage is a bump.  A weird lump of something that wasn't there last week. Yes, I know, I'm pregnant and this is to be expected as my organs are re-arranging to make way for the tiny little bean growing up inside of me but when your internal workings begin to shift and move its just a little... weird.

I've been poking it and rubbing it since it made its move a couple of days ago and making others do the same as it really just intrigues me.  Unfortunately for Allison, she is one of the only people who I am close enough with at work and is subject to my freak-outs more often than not.  It is unfortunate, as well, that our cubicles do not have doors and anyone can walk by and see what is happening in said cubicle.  And, when some one walks in to a cubicle to see one woman rubbing another woman's belly, it looks slightly suspicious.

"Oh, don't worry, I'm just feeling Debbie's pregnant belly" Allison explained as she laughed. 

"What!?  You're not pregnant, are you?"

"I certainly hope so, because if not I'm really sick and gaining way too much weight" was my reply. 

It turns out that our co-worker went to another after this rendez-vous and whispered, "Did you know that Debbie is pregnant?"  "Well, yes" replied Paula "I heard that."  "She's just so... young!"

Paula laughed and explained really, I'm not that young.  When I walked by again, Paula stopped me and told me that JoAnn was very worried about me, and that I should go calm her down.  Turns out, JoAnn was certain I was no more than 20 and didn't know I was married.  When I spoke to her directly, she was visibly relieved that I was older than she thought. 

It was kind of strange, I must admit, to be deemed "old enough to have children".  I've never really felt old and never really thought of myself as anything but still very young.  Some of my friends had "quarter life crisises" as we liked to call them when they turned 25.  Even more have all but lost it when they've realized that 30 is just around the corner.  But really, those numbers never bothered me.  I have so much more life to live, so much more to learn that none of that ever really mattered to me. 

Things keep happening, though, that remind me that I am practically, dare I say it, a grown-up.  That didn't occur to me when we got married or bought a house, or even when I got pregnant.  I loved those things.  They seemed natural, like what was happening was exactly what was supposed to be happening. 

I still don't feel old just... just too young for some of the things that are happenin in my life to be happening. 

I found out today that a friend from college had a miscarriage over the weekend.  My heart aches for her and knowing that she has had to go through that is just devastating.  Even though I've gone through it myself, I just don't feel old enough to know others the same age as me who have had it happen as well.  Its more comfortable to think of mine as a fluke, not something that happens to people my age.  A friend of Mike's from high school confided in me that she is taking fertility medications in hopes of having a second child.  It doesn't seem like all that long ago that a pregnancy was something to be terrified of instead of praying and dreaming and wishing for. 

My mom always told me not to rush things, that everything would happen in due time and not to grow up too fast.  I didn't listen to a word she said (what high school girl things her mom knows anything?) and still dreamed of when I could move out and start a life of my own.  Well, it turns out she was part way right (I'm still not old enough to admit she was completely right).  I was right to be excited for so much... meeting my husband, getting married, buying our first house... all of these things were just as wonderful and amazing as I thought they would be.  But, as life gets better, the tragedies become bigger.  Worries no longer revolve around gas in the car and what to do on Saturday night, but divorce and death and so much heart ache.  Days after the miscarriage happened, I kept saying that I felt so small and that life felt so huge.  I think that's where age starts to set in; when you really start to feel it.  It's when you finally realize just how small and young you are.