That old sting

Friday night was Greg's Senior Non-commissioned Officer Induction Dinner and Ceremony. This is one of the many formalities that can precede a promotion. He told me about this event about two weeks ago and since then, I stressed over what to wear. There are many phrases that can strike fear into the heart of a pregnant woman and I've learned that one of them is "formal attire."
I went to Motherhood and they had two dresses that would have worked, except they make dresses for women with breasts as large as my head and I am still waiting to get those giant pregnancy boobs everyone talks about. It just isn't happening.
So, I tried shopping in the regular dresses, but I ran into all sorts of problems. My middle is just too thick at this point. I even tried to wear something I already own because I have a wide array of sizes in my closet thanks to my weight fluctuations over the years but none of those dresses were right either.
On Thursday, I ventured into more stores before going to work and out of sheer desperation I went in Target -- where I found this plain black maternity dress for $12.50 on clearance. I took it to work and my boss gave it the thumbs up and paired one of the best necklaces we have in our store with it to dress it up.
So, off we went on Friday night -- with me feeling a little self conscious wondering if my dress was formal enough. I looked fine. Some of the ladies there seriously needed to visit me at Talbots for an intervention and others were dressed to the nines.
It's odd, now that I'm pregnant and most people can look at me and tell that I am pregnant, you would think that the stinging comments that go straight to your heart and bring tears to your eyes would be over. But, sadly, that is not the case.
Two examples from this event will explain what I mean. A guy my husband works with asked if he could buy us a drink. Greg said he'd have a beer and then said "of course, my wife isn't drinking." And, the guy looked at me funny and then seemed to suddenly recall that I'm pregnant. "Oh that's right," he said. "Is this your first?" Then after my response, he said to Greg "You're almost 50 years old and you're just having a kid? Did you have to go to the sperm bank?" ha ha ha ha ha
I felt that old familiar sting and I frantically searched for a comeback, but my baby mush brain came up with nothing. Fortunately, Greg is better at this type of thing and he said, "Yea, and I told them to give me the most athletic SOB they had so we'll be rich in about 20 years."
Later, this same guy says. "So, are you guys going to have more kids after this one?" Again, I felt that hurt and I looked to Greg to step in and be my voice. "I think one will be enough if he's anything like his dad," Greg said. And, his co-workers all laughed and chimed in with comments like, "ain't that the truth."
On the way home, I asked Greg if he thought anything of this guy's comments and he said this man is very inappropriate in work and social situations so he wasn't surprised that he would make insensitive comments.
Of course, you can't let people like that get to you, but in the moment it does sting and I guess that will always be true.