How is it conceivably possible that on an oversold Southwest flight of 149 total passengers and not an empty seat on the entire plane, that I manage to find the only pregnant person on board to sit near? There was essentially a 2 in 148th of a chance I'd sit next to the only visibly pregnant woman on board.
But you see, what's awful about Southwest is that you walk down the rows to people who place their personal belongings in the middle {worst} seat so that they might get lucky and no one would sit next to them. We were among the last seated because we did not check in early like the rest of the passengers. Well, after walking past about 5 of these situations and lots of fat men pouring over into the seats next to them, I chose the window seat with a couple that looked pretty respectable to sit next to. We never touched arms throughout the entire 3 hour flight. It was a beautiful thing. All was well...
Until... we all took out our books. I'm reading House Rules by Jodi Picoult {loving it... my sister-in-law gave it to me. It's my first JP book!}, the man takes out some random book about being an Omnivore, and she takes out... What to Expect When You're Expecting. Great. It's a pregnant chick. And then I look over and see the visible belly. I'd track her at about 16-20 weeks. Sure enough, she opens the book to "Month Four" and begins reading. She stops in 5 minute intervals to tell her husband something she's learning about this child she's growing. Gosh, I remember that excitement. I remember reading the "expecting" book. And that's just it. One of my fellow BLM blogger friends wrote it like this. You say, "I'm expecting" because you fully "expect" to have a baby after those 40 weeks are up. You expect that all will be well. You expect it to turn out well. Funny how we use terms like that but never think them through. Well, until you're in my shoes and you think everything through.
A fire was burning inside of my body at this time. I wanted to cry, scream, run. I had a few tears and then I resolved to wait until I got off the plane. Three hours of complete torture.
As we were arriving, she plops the book, face-up on her husband's lap and proceeds to tie her shoes. "It's getting really hard to do this now that we're reaching month 5!"
Gut punch.
Then, we walked off the plane and down the terminal and tears were streaming. Welcome back to Chicago... the land of the dark and dreary. The land of winter and my re-occuring nightmare and sadness.
I guess it's fitting that my flight back "home" would be somber. After all, vacation's over. Back to reality.
Is it just me, or is Old Man Winter particularly cruel this year?
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