Clubhouse

There are some things that no one has ever told you about being pregnant. Oh sure, there are things that everyone knows, little facts and helpful bits that you have picked up somewhere along the line of your life. They say you'll have weird cravings, and that you had better stock up on Tums. I know not to buy new shoes in the same size I've worn since I was 13, and I know to find a good necklace to hang my wedding rings on.

But what they don't tell you, is that there is a club. And now you're in. Being pregnant is like you've finally been accepted into this club that your parents, and every single adult the world over who has ever told that baby laying in their arms "I love you, you're mine" belongs to.

There are no rules to this club, no member fees. It's not a club based on passing down generations of advice, like you might expect. Nor is it a club where you get to meet once a week in someones basement, the air smokey with cigars. No one hands you a membership card, in fact, no one ever tells you that you are officially in.

But when you see someone, be it relative, acquaintance, or stranger, and you tell them you are pregnant, or your wife/girlfriend/one-time lover is pregnant - the look in their eyes says, "welcome to the club." They don't say anything specific, nothing more than the "when-are-you-dues" and "any-weird-cravings" that everyone feels like they should ask. But they will look you in the eyes, and the most important thing they can say, there are no words for. It's a look from them trying to tell you how wonderful, painful, exciting, thrilling, heart breaking, back breaking, rewarding of an experience you are in for. But there are no words that can describe this. None. So they look at you. And their hearts send a message up to their eyes and it says, simply, "welcome."

"You only THINK you love Cara," Grammy LaBree says to Toff. My mothers' mother, a woman who gave birth five times herself, and can now count seven children as her own. So perhaps she has had some practice welcoming people to the club, but this is the closest I think anyone has come to putting their feelings adequately into words. This person who you have promised your whole life to, who you have publicly declared that you love more than anyone else, you only THINK you love them. Wait. Just you wait.

We'll wait, little baby. But only for three more months.