Anyone else feel like people see you as a pregnancy... and nothing else?

[thechinaclogs]

Since I started telling people and especially since showing, people are endlessly asking me "how's your bump?" or "how's the mum to be?" Wherever I go, people are commenting on my body size ("turn round so we can see your ass, oh it's definitely a boy") or giving me pregnancy and birth-related advice. One colleague keeps coming up to me at my desk while I'm busy doing my work to give tips on, amongst other things, what brand of breast and sanitary pads I should buy for my hospital bag!
I know people are mostly being nice, but I've always had lots of things I'm passionate about - my job, interests, my partner, friendships etc - and suddenly it's like those bits of me just don't feature on people's radar anymore. Even when I try to move the conversation elsewhere, people just steer it back. It's almost like my brain and my personality just aren't here anymore. It's all about my womb!
I'm trying my best to keep my reactions in perspective, but I'm a bit scared that this is it, that people are only ever going to talk to me about babies and children from now on! How to explain to them that I'm really happy to be having a baby, but that I haven't stopped being myself? I would love some advice and solidarity from other women in a similar position!

I feel the same way. I'm a medical physicist with lots of interests. But now, even to some good friends, I'm a mum to be.
I don't want to sound uninterested in my child, I can't wait and I'm enjoying doing the planning, but I don't want to talk/think about it constantly! (Que guilty feelings already!)
Its me that steers conversations back to the news/people's exciting holidays etc.
Luckily DH feels the same way so at least he asks me what I did at work!

My boys are aged 19 and 21 now, but I still bristle at the memories of total strangers patting my bump!

I hear you. Some people with kids seem desperate to pass on their experiences, so this is a great opportunity for them to do so even though you never asked them. I'm forever being tagged in twee/scaremongering Facebook posts, f'rinstance, which drives me nuts! Then there's the constant uninvited belly-rubbing - I genuinely had 3 people feeling me up at once the other week

I know they all mean well, I know they're trying to share in the joy or whatever, I must just be a grumpy arse but I wish they'd stop. When I want advice, I'll ask for it. I'm just very grateful for the amazing people in my life who remember that I have a brain capable of thinking about things other than babies and talk to me about said other stuff.

I think you just have to be very firm about steering conversations away from the B and P words. Just give them a short answer and talk about something else. Then go and whinge at your OH for an hour or so.

Yes. My mum's the worst. Suddenly I'm like some f*cking porcelain doll who might break at any minute. She phones regularly to check 'how I am' (before getting knocked up I'd go weeks without hearing from her) and if I dare get wound up about some political issue or something on the news, it's all 'careful, you need to watch your blood pressure for the baby...'. She doesn't realise that her patronising treatment is doing more to raise my blood pressure than anything I read in the news!!

My sister keeps me grounded. My mum doesn't bother me on the phone but when I saw her at the weekend she was all "choccy can't sleep on an airbed - she's pregnant!" or "choccy can't run after the children - she's pregnant!" and my Dsis was like "Mum she's fine. I've done it twice, she's not ill, she can kip on the airbed with me" haha.

Asking to 'see your ass' is just incredibly rude.

Oh thanks so much ladies, I am so glad to read these comments and to know that I'm not alone.
Fizzy the thing you wrote about being excited about your baby but not wanting to talk/think about it constantly made me feel sane again!
Skeppers my mother is exactly the same, has barely called me for years but is now texting all the time, and desperate to come visit so she can "see my bump". Meanwhile my MIL has somehow acquired a stethoscope and is threatening to come round and listen to the baby's heartbeat with it!
There are some really hilarious posts on choccy's thread about cringey attention. My personal favourite was the woman whose FIL bought her a silk cushion with "reserved for the mum to be" embroidered on it - like seriously, WTFF???.

Will definitely take Teeste's advice about firm steering of actual conversations. When it's texts/ emails/ FB posts etc my strategy has largely been delete and forget. Recently though someone I had been doing this to messaged me to say that she had so many really important things she wanted to tell me about pregnancy, birth and "baby" (why do these people never use a definite article?) but that obviously I just didn't want to know. Her advice hadn't really been very helpful - pretty heavy promotion of (in her words) "non-interventionist, non-medicalised" birth, which I felt was just lumping on unhelpful pressure. Despite all that, I felt a mix of relief that she'd got the hint but also a bit of guilt - she is just trying to be nice, it just doesn't feel like that on the receiving end!