The Wait

Waiting to share the news that you are pregnant feels like forever (when you’re happy about it, anyways). And that was only two days in. I hadn’t even gone to the Doctor yet. It didn’t matter. I felt sure. I wanted to call my sisters. I wanted to FaceTime my best friends and hold up my pregnancy test with the little pink cap and the big digital ‘YES+’ on it and wave it and tell them all they were going to be Aunties & Uncles. I also found myself with the weird urge to Tweet things I was already feeling, like ‘Sitting home reading pregnancy books and listening to classical music. Yup, just what I thought 30 was going to be like.’

Weighing the pros and cons of sharing the news or not, it’s tough. I kept thinking about all the ways I was going to have to lie to people over the next 10 weeks. Thankfully, I had already started the year by swearing off alcohol for the first month, and even though that timeframe was over, I knew I could easily pick it back up again and say that I wanted to take an alcohol break. I knew there would be certain people in my life who would ask if I was pregnant, but I was going to have to dig up my rusty theatre skills and keep it under wraps.

I had to make do with gushing over the cats, and discussing it with my husband. We both kept looking at each other with really wide eyes several times a day and saying things like ‘What have we done?’ or ‘I’m growing a person’ or just ‘Whoa…’ Things already seemed to be changing too. My chest was swollen, and I was wondering if that was going to go away or stick around (Spoiler: it stays). I had a handful of pregnancy books and I was working on reading the First Trimester sections of each of them. I had to sadly inform my dear husband that the Costco sized packs of cherry tomatoes and cucumbers were both on the ‘Dirty Dozen’ list of foods that are high in pesticides, and therefore off my list unless organic for the next 9 months (Authors note: that plan went out the window after I bought two organic bell peppers for $10. Bring on the cherry tomatoes.)

I was also due at a Bachelorette party the weekend after I found out, and just knowing I was going to have to spend the whole weekend lying was a really hard feeling. I thought about other upcoming weekends, where we had plans to see family and friends who we wouldn’t be able to tell in person if we didn’t tell them then. But it would still be “too early.”

I went back and forth a lot about whether to start sharing at 6 weeks, or wait longer. I had bouts of nerves, thinking that if I did have a miscarriage, I wouldn’t want it to be a huge conversation. But as I’ve said, I realized that I also wouldn’t keep it a secret either. I would still tell the people close to me. Aside from discussing this here, I had/have no intention of doing a birth announcement online. We would tell people as best we could, and then the rest would happen when it would happen. I realized that when it came to telling people early though, I was actually more worried about what their reactions would be if I lost the baby. I felt I would be sad to disappoint anyone who had already gotten excited about the pregnancy, if I then had to turn around and tell them it wasn’t happening. Is that weird? I don’t know. Part of it for sure was not wanting to have that heart wrenching conversation over and over. Feeling as excited as I already did (do, really, in all honesty I wrote this in real time weeks ago so it was fresh), I can’t imagine how heartbreaking it would be to have a miscarriage. As I said before, it is sad that we don’t talk about it enough, so that women may not feel shame and feel like they can’t reach out, but I get it. I get not wanting to make it everyone’s business. It is a personal experience. And that is a thought that held me back as well. I have had several women share with me their struggles through miscarriage recently and how much more common they have discovered it is even in their own circle of people, and I think it’s great that they shared and found support. I found out that my Mother had one in between my brother and I, and despite my Father saying he felt it wasn’t as big a deal for her because she had already had a successful pregnancy, I wish she were here for me to ask her about it.

I think one of the hardest things I experienced was not being able to share the news with other women, especially those in my life who are already mothers. I wanted to ask questions and advice. I wanted to hear their stories. I wanted to chat and share and talk about what I had to look forward to, what I should be doing now, and what I should make time for before the baby arrived. And when I started to get nauseous, I so wished I could have reached out to women to talk about it, even to just share in the discomfort. The first time I really felt it was in my sixth week at a 6:30am, in a boot camp class, doing barbell presses over my head. I put my bar down for a rest, and it hit me so hard I honestly thought I was going to have to run outside to throw up. There were two other women in the class, both of whom were mothers. I would have loved their advice! Or at least have been able to commiserate with them. That was also the week I started to get inexplicably tired at really weird times during the day. And the energy I had to put into my workouts slowed way down. I really did want to talk about it. If you haven’t guessed already, I am a bit of an information sharer.

Seeing my family was really hard. I hated not being able to tell them, especially knowing that they were going to be really excited. I sort of avoided everyone a little bit for the first few months. Put off planning visits and lunch dates that I otherwise would have pushed for, because I knew I wouldn’t want to keep the secret (or couldn’t). One funny thing I found I did was told a few random strangers when the opportunity presented itself in conversation. No harm, right? Who ere they going to tell? I guess I was just super excited.

When we finally decided to start sharing the news, that was so fun. It was sort of crazy being able to drop a big piece of information like that on people. So many adorable and hilarious genuine reactions. There were tears, stunned silences, lots of FaceTime sessions, and hugs. We did our best to tell people one at a time, and put them all in a cone of silence, but eventually the news starts to get out and you can’t expect people to keep a secret forever.

Now there is a whole new kind of timeline. Every week learning what my body is doing, what the baby is doing. I am also loving being able to share with other parents and hear their perspectives and tips. I love when someone finds out I am pregnant and hands me a baby, like “Here, you need to practice.” I have always loved holding babies, but it sure feels different now knowing I’ll have one of my own in a few months. There is also this great unexpected calm in the distance. It’s like everything after my due date is just a void. I have never been a parent, I have very little idea what it’s going to be like. Tired, that’s one guarantee. In the past, I have been nervous about the unknown, but I am genuinely excited, and somehow, calm about it. I don’t feel like I am waiting, or rushing. I am just present to this experience that is changing every day. I am so grateful for that.