Do you really think you should be doing that?

My new pet peeve (you know, I have a lot of them) is the judgement you get from other people regarding what you should and shouldn't do. I know people love to have opinions about everything, including other people, but it is frustrating when it's pretty obvious that you know more than they do about what's going on these days with regards to safety during pregnancy (and there's a lot) that they can't trust that you will do what's best. For example, this past weekend my DH and I took a trip a few hours north to get out of the heat (at least that's why I was going, he'll probably tell you it's because he had two races) and I was really excited about going bike riding. We both bought bikes the week before (basic comfort/hybrid bikes from target and a yard sale) and I have been DYING to go bike riding. Of course biking in Arizona this time of year seems impossible (110 degrees and rising) but if you drive a few hours North you get the the relief of a whopping 30 degrees! It is beautiful. Plus there are trees. Not the things people around here call trees (which are more like twigs with some moss-stuff on it) but actual bark and leaves. And grass! Further, I've been wanting to buy bikes for the two of us to go bike riding together for a long time (I actually thought about getting it for us as a Christmas gift) so it seemed to be a perfect anniversary gift for each other (2 years on July 5th!). We live in a pretty rural neighborhood, so there are lots of places to go biking and it's paved but without traffic. But anyway, back to our trip this past weekend...

Once we got to the cabin we were staying at (my DH's whole family was there to watch the racing) people learned about the different things that I can and can't eat. And people are always surprised (so am I for that matter) about how many things are "unsafe". I mean, a lot has changed in a few years and if you're not up on the research (and why would you be, there's plenty of other more fascinating things going on in the world) than this would be news to you. So they learned that I can't eat cold cut meats, runny eggs, the good cheeses, honey, meat that isn't cooked through all the way, and alcohol (ok, they knew about that one). You would think that knowing I am careful about all of these things that I would be careful about being safe. But I still got lots of comments. Ranging from "make sure you don't fall!" to "in my day we weren't allowed to go bike riding" (well in your day you thought aids was transmitted through skin-to-skin contact). To clarify, we weren't biking up a mountain or anything. We went to a park and drove around a flat, paved, bike/walking path. I think I have high heels that are more dangerous than that. I mean, hello?!, I used to ride in triathlons. It's not like I wanted to go learn HOW to ride a bike! So some advice (see, we all have our opinions, but mine's in a blog so it's ok), don't ask a pregnant lady if she should be doing whatever it is she's doing (exceptions can be made for binge drinking and scuba diving). It can be overwhelming with all of the things that we can't do so give us some credit when we want to do something we CAN do.