Warning---Pregnant Belly in Jeans

I woke up this morning excited about the gorgeous drive up the Mississippi River Valley, the entire area decorated with flame-colored stands of birch and poplars and maples. But I wasn't sure how to dress. This is fall. Jeans weather. But a pregnant woman in jeans? I'm not comfortable with the way my butt looks in jeans when I'm not pregnant (though, like every woman I know, I fake a level of security with my own body that really only exists for brief moments of time). But the cool, crisp air and the thought of crunchy piles of leaves under my feet made me dig out the three pair of maternity jeans that my friend Sarah gave me four months ago. And when I found a pair I didn't hate, I decided to leave the house in them and wear them for my meeting with Rhonda.

The Belly in Jeans

Rhonda is a friend from the Twin Cities who is just 6 weeks behind me, carrying an active little girl that is probably well over a 1 pound at this point. And now that we live two and a half hours apart, it's been tough to find time to get together and catch up. We decided to meet halfway in Red Wing for a walk on the Cannon Valley Trail and lunch at Lilly's Coffeehouse on Main Street.

Despite the cloudy skies, the drive up the Mississippi River Valley did not disappoint. Around each new curve I encountered slashes of bright yellow and orange that always surprise me when they occur naturally. The bright yellows along the highway and hanging over the little towns along the river look like they would glow in the dark if someone turned the lights out, and I kept pulling over to take pictures. The drive is a commute I made every single day for the last several years, but for a few weeks in October every year, it becomes even more magical, and i feel truly blessed to live in such a beautiful place.

Rhonda and Barb, Two Bellys on the Cannon Valley Trail, Red Wing

Rhonda and I met and started walking fast and hard, not even paying attention to our heavy breathing and the stretching ligaments below our growing bellys. It had been so long since we'd seen each other and we had so much to catch up on... boys and houses and jobs and money and so very many stories. But most of all it was so great to be able to talk to somebody else who knows exactly what you're talking about when you say you are in love with the movements going on in your own belly, somebody else who understands that sometimes you stand in front of the mirror after your morning shower and study the line down the center of your belly and the way your belly button has flattened out and the way your profile looks like you have a basketball stretching your skin from the inside. It is so nice to confess these things to someone, to say "I can't believe it's me that's pregnant, it's me that's going to be the mom" and have them say "I know. Exactly." It really is the most unbelievable experience, and I am so glad to be able to share it with so many people, but days like today when I get together with my friend who has chosen this same path of single motherhood and understands so many of the ups and downs and fears and joys of this whole process, I feel especially grateful. When we got back to our cars in the parking lot and looked at the clock and realized we had been walking and talking for two solid hours, we let ourselves admit to sore backs and aching feet and stretching ligaments. We probably walked well over 5 miles which ain't too bad for a couple of pregnant women of "advanced maternal age." In Jeans!