Everyone in my office is pregnant. O.K., maybe not everyone. Not the guys at least, and not myself, thank goodness. But just about everyone else is. There are currently four women walking around with large baby-filled bellies (o.k., that's not everyone but it feels like a lot.) I can't look up from my computer screen or walk down the hall without coming face to (face? foot? elbow?) with an unborn child. In addition, there are currently three women on maternity leave and four guys' wives have given birth since I started here in January.

This morning one of the maternity-leave women arrived, newborn in tow. What followed was an hour long gathering right in front of me of just about every woman in the office passing this poor child around, speaking in silly high-pitched tones, and asking questions of the mother regarding the most intimate details of feeding, changing, and indeed even burping this baby. I myself am not anti-baby, not by any means. I just find it a little hard to jump on this bandwagon, o.k.? I know that I sound cynical and I'm alright with that.

Anyway, what's amazing to me about the whole process, is that when this woman was pregnant, she had the hugest stomach I've ever seen on any pregnant woman. I thought at any moment a Volkswagon Beetle might burst forth from her womb as surely as any baby. I used to feel sorry for her, lugging that stomach around, dragging herself slowly in the door in the morning, and lumbering slowly down the hall. And because of when I started working here in relation to when she gave birth, I had never seen her not look this way. Imagine my surprise to see her, stomach-free, with a cute, tiny, round-headed thing, no bigger than a loaf of bread. So, the amazing part is thinking the last time I saw that baby, it was in the form of a giant stomach. The difference is as dramatic as a caterpiller turned to a butterfly. How is it even possible?  ¶ 11:24 AM