When to Send Out the Press Release

For the first three months of my pregnancy, the only people who knew about it were me and my hubby, my doctor and my masseuse. That's all. We kept it a well-guarded secret for reasons that fell somewhere between well-reasoned pragmatism and irrational paranoia.

Even now that I'm four months along and I've started telling more people (our parents, siblings, bosses, and some close friends), I'm still not entirely comfortable with the idea of "going public."

Perhaps it's fear that all conversations from here on out will be about babies or pregnancies. Or maybe it's my lingering paranoia that something could go wrong (and then I'd prefer to mourn as privately as possible). Either way, I've found the experience of keeping this secret quite fun, and I highly recommend that more women try it out.

For one thing, during those months, it's your little secret baby, and not yet someone else's grandchild, niece, or godchild (though those are all wonderful things). Secondly, you're going to be a parent above all else for the rest of your life...enjoy your last few months as a professional, a student, a wife, a funky twenty-something, or whatever you may be now.

So on Wednesday, I have the twenty-week sonogram which should prove, among other things, that I am indeed carrying a human inside me. Maybe, after that point, I'll be more willing to send out the press release!