The Pregnant Pause

I always thought that the phrase in the title was simply a literary anecdote. Yet it became more literal than literary last week.

The day we were leaving for Honduras, it was 3:30 in the morning and we were hanging out under the canopy at church waiting for our ride to the airport. We were just a chit-chatting and the subject came up about how I was carrying all that medical equipment with me.

Me: It's going to be a bit hard explaining why I'm carrying this fetal heart monitor in my backpack.
My mom to everyone else: Well, you know she's pregnant right?

At this point, I knew that my mom was talking about the missionary lady we were going to stay with, though the way it came out, it sounded like she was talking about me. So I waited, debating whether to clarify or let it pass. I chose to clarify.

Me: She's talking about V, not me.
Everyone else: Huge sighs of relief.
My mom: of course they knew I wasn't talking about you.

Only they didn't. My friend G was standing next to me, and he later told me that the first thought that went through his head was "Oh my Gosh, Heidi's pregnant", and then turned to the woman next to him and tried to change the subject. Which was all the nervous mumbling that followed my mom's announcement. Considering we were leaving on a mission trip and standing at the church in the Jesus town, it's amazing I wasn't struck down by lighting just because some people thought it was true.

Later in the week, a friend of the family said that her first thought was that I was going to be having a little Chinese baby. (And this without her even knowing about the Chinese massage fiasco). So I became the butt of most jokes. We had in-line water heaters that would suck so much power that the lights would dim. So the saying was that since we were conserving water, we had a two dim-limit when showering. Which thus became the name of my fictitious Chinese baby. At various points throughout the week, someone would turn to me and in all seriousness say, "Just think of two-dim." It's a good thing I have such a good sense of humor.