Before we built anything, we talked to women. This is what we heard.
"You're glowing."
You are not glowing. You have not slept properly in six weeks. Your hips ache. You are bloated in a way that feels unfamiliar and slightly alarming. But you've learned to smile at this one because the alternative is explaining that "glowing" is a polite word people use when they don't know what else to say to a body that is visibly changing.
"Are you sure you should be working this hard?"
Yes. Also, this is the same amount you were working three months ago and nobody said anything then. The bump does not change the answer.
"Just rest. Enjoy it."
This one comes from a kind place, which makes it harder to respond to honestly. Rest sounds simple when you're saying it to someone else. It is not simple when you have deadlines, a household, a body that doesn't feel like yours yet, and a mental load that doesn't pause because you're gestating.
"You're so small / so big for [number of weeks]."
This is not a compliment. It is not an insult. It is an observation about a stranger's body delivered as though it were a weather report. And yet it comes constantly, from people who would never comment on a non-pregnant woman's size without a second thought.
"Have you thought about what you'll do about work after?"
The question is never really about logistics. It is a test. Are you the kind of woman who will choose correctly — which is to say, the kind who will step back, slow down, prioritise the baby over everything she built before? The logistics are a pretext. The actual question is: who are you going to be now?
"You look so different."
Different how, specifically? Nobody ever says. They just look at you with an expression that's somewhere between fascination and concern — as though pregnancy has made you someone worth observing rather than talking to.
We spoke to a lot of women while building be imli. We asked about clothes. We ended up talking about everything.
What came through, consistently, was not bitterness — most of these women are genuinely happy to be pregnant. What came through was the low-grade exhaustion of being perceived as a condition rather than a person. Of every conversation starting with the bump and ending there. Of feeling like the most interesting thing about you, for a stretch of months, is something happening to your body rather than anything you're doing with your mind.
be imli can't fix the questions. But it can be one thing — just one thing — that treats you like you're still the whole person you were before the bump showed up.
That's what we're building. Come shop →
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