The waiting is the worst

Anyone who has tried to get pregnant know this to be true: The waiting is the worst part. What has been interesting this week is that I'm traveling with another woman who is in her second trimester. So she knows she's having a baby and has a little tummy to prove it.

Yesterday while I was getting a manicure, the woman at the spa pointed at my stomach and said, "Baby?"

"We don't know yet," I said. Which is the truth. Because although I am a little late for my period, I don't want to hope yet that it's late enough. I would have loved to stopped in any one of the ten pharamacies I saw today and ask for a pregnancy test but our friends were with us. And my husband and I are trying to spare everyone the awkwardness of knowing that we want something someone else already has. Getting my period at this point will be a bigger disappointment than any previous month because this is the longest it's been.

Also then I will have to admit that any of the weight I lost over the summer while studying in Damascus has now come back and directly to my stomach.

We were walking towards the Golden Palace today in Bangkok, Thailand, and a man called out to my husband: "A girl or a boy?"

I hoped he was talking about our friend who was walking behind us.

The biggest advantage to being pregnant will be the ability to be fat and not to have worry about this expanding belly.

Either it's extreme pre-period bloated-ness or my body rebelling for a near month of non exercise.

Stay tuned to see what happens. My mind isn't made up either way. I do know that car fumes in the past have never made me nauseous before; or that the mere act of drinking water can calm that bile rising in my throat; the crunching sounds of our relatives on chicken bones over the weekend had me running from the table; and the smell of fish and other seafood in the markets of Laos and Thailand have me breathing through my mouth.

We may soon have another problem: why at one month I'm three times the size of my friend who is three months.

Life is always about challenges.