… and yet I’m going to anyway: I’m pregnant. I mean pregnant in the actual, two-pink-lines-on-the-test-stick sense of the word, and not in the kooky-Arizona-legislation sense.  Conventional wisdom says I should wait until the second trimester, or at least until I’ve seen the baby’s heartbeat on the ultrasound, before I share this news, but I can’t wait.

The Friday and Saturday before last, Penelope and I went through two boxes of early result pink line tests, squinting at them under various lighting conditions and asking, “Is that a line? Is it a shadow?” This (bottom test) was the clearest of the bunch, so now I am a huge fan of the digital yes vs. no/pregnant vs. not pregnant tests.

I mean it. I literally can’t wait. I have a job that requires me to handle confidential information all the time. I am scrupulously careful about guarding other people’s secrets, but it turns out I suck at trying to keep my own. Since I got this news a week and a half ago, I have developed what Penelope refers to as Pregnancy Tourette’s (with apologies: we know that’s not politically correct). In every conversation, I want to blurt out, “I’m pregnant!” People talk to me and comment that I seem distracted, and I want to reply, “What? I’m sorry. I wasn’t listening, because I’m pregnant!”

What a difference a week makes: this is the same brand test, taken one week later.

I’ve been trying to choke back this urge to spill my guts by thinking about the terrible follow-up conversations I will have to have if something goes wrong, but by that reasoning, this blog is a really appropriate place to share my news. If the unthinkable happens and I miscarry, I will almost certainly need to use this blog as a forum to write about the experience and process my grief. So, here, it is a matter of whether to share now, when you readers can share in my joy and those of you who believe in such things can offer up your prayers and good intentions for a positive outcome when such intercessions might still make a difference, or whether I wait and, in the event of a mishap, share my grief with you only after there is only grief to share. (Let’s hope it never comes to that!) -Anyway, viewed that way, I choose to share now.

However, I am purposely not linking this post (or probably any posts for the next few weeks or months) to Facebook or Twitter. If you know me on those social networks, please don’t mention my news there. I have family and friends who will worry for me every minute until this baby delivers, and for some of those folks, excessive worry is not good for their health or well-being. I hope to minimize their stress by not sharing the news with them until the pregnancy is firmly established, and though most of these people are not on the interwebs much, they talk to people who are, and I’d hate for, say, my dear Gram to get this news second-hand. (So, friends and family, if you read this, please don’t tell anyone who doesn’t already know!)

This may not be the best strategy for dealing with sensitive information in the digital age, but at this moment, it feels right to me. This secret is too big to carry on my own: it’s making me crazy. Here, I can share my madness–and joy, and anxiety, and excitement, and all of the myriad other things I’m feeling every moment–with you. I hope you’ll wish me well and join me in the long wait to welcome this new baby, whose arrival is tentatively slated for mid-late March, 2013.

Oh, yeah, and hooray for Femara, right?!

-C.