When you were pregnant, did you...?

Not on the belly ... both hands under to hold it up!

It was so long ago I can't really remember. I do remember wearing my staff nurse's uniform with pride until Matron said " I think its time you started wearing a white coat Nurse " Matron was all powerful in those days.

Sorry thatbags I really can't remember. The last baby was 33 years ago - as my old dad used to say "A lot of water has gone under the bridge since then!"

One memory I do have is being very pregnant and sitting beside my mum as the baby - and so my bump - was rolling from side to side. I guess she was changing position, and my darling mum said "I know just what that feels like as you used to do that".
That felt like a special moment - and that was 46 years ago!!

Not that I remember.
It amuses me to see the 'side on' pics where they have one hand on top and the other underneath pulling their clothing around the bump. Do they think we need convincing there is a bump.

I was less bold than today's mums-to-be (in 1980) and did nothing to draw attention to the bump. I wore smock dresses or tops, even a smock swimming costume which would never be sold now.

I'm the same as broadwater my mother would have quickly told me off for calling attention and as she would say 'embarrassing' people.

Hi sis! I was also told that I wasn't the first person to be pregnant!!

No! I didn't particularly want to draw attention to it, but with my second bump it became so large it didn't need any emphasis, although I do remember thinking I wish I had some support from underneath and occasionally would clasp by hands together under it for this purpose. I did deliver quite a large baby so luckily the mound
disappeared fairly quickly.

Like this?
(Plus ça change.....)

Just wasn't 'the done thing' all those years ago, was it? I have 2 pregnant photos from that time - one taken by my then husband in the shallows of a river, no-one else around. The other he took in my mother's kitchen, with a tea-towel just happening to cover my bump and my mother turning round with a 'Now what are you doing?' look on her face My late MIL was living abroad at the time and had sent us the camera so she could see photos of her first grandson

Never had a bump as there was masses of length for a baby to fit into. The second one was breech and a nurse said to me Oh your baby can stand up. I also remember at 36 weeks someone tentatively asking if I was pregnant.

...though we're told she wasn't pregnant, Maw

I had quite a petite bump with my first baby, but with the second I was huge, I could balance a dinner plate on top. I also had vulvar varicosities and was most uncomfortable for the majority of that pregnancy. Thank goodness that everything goes back to normal after the baby is born.

I was noticing a pregnant woman holding her bump only the other day and remarked to my friend that we never did that. I did used to balance a plate, which became a bit precarious when DD had the hiccups, which was frequently!

I don't think I did with the first one. With the second my hands were usually up over my head, as I found the most comfortable way to carry No. 1 was to sit him on my shoulders. With No 3 I then had two toddlers holding my hands, one on each side. I felt like a party balloon that had been blown up once too often - I was wearing maternity clothes at three months!

Are you very, very tall Jayanna?

My Viking ancestors I think. ?

True Bellanonna but as the art historian Hannah Gadsby points out.
Not only did Van Eyck have a habit of painting women to look like they were with child even when they were without, but it was also fashionable at the time to look pregnant when you were not. Faking the harvest to attract the seed, so to speak.

I think the "fashionable" element is part of what we see today, especially in those awful celebrity pictures, AND where the Dad looks as old as Mick Jagger's grandpa.

?MawB

I am indeed very fashionable (looking pregnant when I am not) ?

Oh that reminds me of the time (last year!) when I asked the very buxom young woman behind the counter in our local deli , with her apron tied under her generous bust, "when the baby was due".
You can guess the rest

I have never dared to go back ?

Never rested hands on my tummy,didn't do anything to draw attention to my condition, mother would have been outraged. When I announced the first pregnancy she dashed out and bought a bright green and orange smock top, well it was 1968.
Second baby was enormous and I waddled when I walked, remember going to ante natal clinic the day before the birth and a workman wolf whistled at me, I cried and the nurse told me not to be silly I should be flattered.

I have very few photos and wore self made maternity trousers with a large top. A few weeks before DD2 was born I was in Munich for Christmas with my in-laws and had bought for the occasion a tent like dress.
MIL asked me if it was my Christmas present from DH.
I couldn't think of an answer but it was always her opinion that I wasted HIS money!
I think men find pregnant women- when preganancy suits them, attractive. May be now we would put our hands on 'baby'

I didn't really have any bump during either pregnancy, just filled out a little!