"How's the Baby?"

Do we ask this in America? To somebody who's only 10 weeks pregnant? People keep asking me that here, and I'm stumped at how to answer them. I know, I'm supposed to say "Fine, thank you." But really, how am I supposed to know how the baby is? I haven't seen it or talked to it. It's not big enough for me to feel it move yet. So I finally told one of my Moldovan friends that we don't ask that in America. We ask a pregnant woman how SHE is, because that is something she knows very well and would more than likely be happy to tell you about. Am I wrong in thinking that's a strange question? I won't actually know how the baby is until it's born, when I can see it and hold it in my hands. Until then, we're all just guessing, aren't we?

I'm also already getting friends wanting to touch my belly. Talk about feeling violated! I know to expect that when you're further along and your belly is big - I've heard you'll have complete strangers want to come up and put their hands all over you. Um, no thanks. However, at this point, all they're getting is a big handful of my fat roll, which I had long before I was pregnant, thank you very much. I'm not saying anything to my Moldovan friends about it, because I don't know how that would translate and I don't want to offend them. But I fully expect to ask Americans to please not touch me without asking first. Here, there is no such thing as personal space, so I guess this is just part of it. And since I'm clearly not showing, it's only my friends who already know I'm pregnant who are touching me, so I'll just live with it. But goodness gracious! Nobody would walk up and grab my stomach before I was pregnant, so why is it ok to do it now?! Alas, the things you just can't prepare for... :)