What I thought this would be like

Before I got pregnant, I had ideas about what the pregnancy would be like. Some of my ideas have been relatively true (I haven't gained a ton of weight, my symptoms haven't been too bad), but others have been way off base. The biggest area where I've been wrong has been my excitement level about the pregnancy.

Don't get me wrong: I am excited to be pregnant and to have a baby. But, at the same time, I'm still just trying to live my life. Work is busy, and I'm busy with other areas of my life. In a lot of ways, it's as if life is just progressing as normal.

I thought I'd be taking weekly (or at least frequent) belly pictures. I haven't taken a single one yet. I thought it would be hard for me to keep the pregnancy a secret, but it hasn't been. While we've told several of our friends face-to-face, I still haven't sent out a mass e-mail to all of my friends back home, cousins, etc. to let them know about the pregnancy. I'm not really sure what I'm waiting for. The baby is clearly getting bigger (I can feel my uterus growing when I push on my belly), but I'm still delaying. I have another appointment next week, so maybe I'll be more interested in telling after that.

I think, in some ways, I kind of like it being a secret. It's like a little secret between me and my husband, and, in some ways, it makes me a little sad to let it out. We're only planning to have 2 or 3 kids, so I know that there are only going to be a few times in my life where I'm pregnant and no one knows it but us. It's actually kind of a cool feeling. And, while I'm thrilled to be able to start telling people, there are definitely some mixed emotions.

I have a feeling that the next 18 years (and probably the rest of my life) are going to be filled with all kinds of mixed emotions. I'd better start getting used to it.