Dan's Belly

We just got back from our babymoon to Kauai. It was a lot of fun. The sun was out, the water was warm, but more importantly, I was drinking for two.

We never had a chance to go on a trip after our wedding, so Kauai doubled as our honeymoon and babymoon. As such, all our travel paperwork said “reason for vacation: honeymoon and babymoon”. I might as well have written “shotgun wedding”. So it was kinda awkward when the front desk hands the “newlywed” Carrie a complementary bottle of champagne and she rests it on her belly. Every time we checked-in to pre-booked activities, you could see the questions swimming around in the heads of our Kauai hosts: “should I acknowledge the wedding AND the pregnancy?”, “should I just ignore the fact that this newlywed is 26 weeks preggers”, “should I ask if her father’s shot gun matched the wedding colors?”.

The only unfortunate (although super funny) development was that Carrie’s grand prego-upgrade schemes were constantly getting denied. She got the idea when we went to Cabo and some lady got bumped to 1^st class cause her tank top said “lucky bride”. All throughout the trip Carrie’d try to wear clothes that extenuated her pregnant belly in order to get free stuff and upgrades. Like, when we checked at the airline ticket counter, she pointed to her belly with her eyes as the ticket agent checked her ID. Thank goodness maternity stores don’t have a newlywed section otherwise I would have been sitting on the plane next to a “lucky bride” tank top wearing preggo periodically commenting on how she didn’t know alcohol was free in first class.

What ultimately thwarted my bride’s prego-upgrade scheme was that Kauai is full of prego travelers, or what I like to call Kauai’s official floppy hat wearing designated driver.

I’d say about one third of all couples in Kauai are expecting. Because of this we saw all kinds of bellies.

And then I noticed that Carrie was just as fascinated at checking out the different pregnant bumps as I was. Which I initially thought was awesome because it gave me free rein to gawk at women (which of course I did not do).

And with anything that is awesome while you are married, there was a soul draining downside: Carrie would constantly complain that everyone had a bigger bump than she had. She had bump envy. And she wanted me to suffer though the pain with her.

I’m totally fine with the size of her bump. And as an Asian male, I know that size isn’t everything. So to reassure her, I would point to huge bumps and say, “that one’s waay to big, that one would definitely hurt”. I would also tell Carrie that her bump was “just the perfect size for me. Not too big, not too small”.

Needless to say she wasn’t buying it.

I knew I was getting desperate when I suggested that we should start shopping for an expensive sports car.

And then one morning we were in front of the bathroom mirror getting ready to go to the beach. As I put my hand on Carrie’s stomach, I was reminded that in that small little belly, a little girl who I have never met before is waiting to come out into this huge, big world; and that Carrie and I would have a responsibility to ensure that this tiny girl in Carrie’s little belly would grow up to be a strong, successful, beautiful woman.

A little girl that we would care for, love, and cherish with all our hearts for the rest of our lives.

I then realized that there's nothing small about Carrie’s little belly.