I just talked to my little brother on the phone, and I swear at least ten opportunities sprung up for me to announce that we're expecting. He's one of the people I can't wait to tell. It'll be his first time as an uncle, so I know he'll be both shocked and excited. The reason why my wife and I are waiting to make the announcement is largely because the first trimester is notoriously shaky for a lot of people, and it would be terrible having to tell everyone how things didn't work out.
It's not like others aren't onto us anyway. The moment my wife stopped drinking, the nosy, awkward speculation kicked in. We got all of these sideways comments from our friends: "Oh, so why are you not drinking tonight? Oh, it's been awhile since we really had some fun -- we should do it up!" I stopped drinking too, but of course nobody said anything about that. In some ways I wish they'd respect our choices, but I'm not totally sure why it matters, besides perhaps the mildly disturbing fact that our friends expect us to have a drink in hand at all times.
My wife's more annoyed with others' speculation than me, to be honest, but I don't blame her. It seems like one of the biggest unspoken aspects of pregnancy is the massive surrendering of control it involves. It's little more than a bit of queasiness for her at the moment, but soon enough there's going to be this whole other organism clearly inhabiting her body. After that, from everything I hear, kids pretty much take over every aspect of your life. Your neat and tidy spaces get constantly tornadoed, your schedules become pure chaos, your hygiene becomes sporadic and unpredictable. Even your thoughts are constantly intercepted by the cute but ceaseless chatter of the wee ones. Yep, that's surrender.
I'm guessing that the better you are at embracing the upheaval, the more you enjoy your life after birth. I suppose there's some kind of spiritual/philosophical lesson in there somewhere, though I'm sure you have no time to ponder it while you're in the thick of things. Maybe the need to keep things secret for awhile has something to do with this lesson: the last, lingering moment of serenity before the hard, world-shattering smack of parenthood.
It's not like others aren't onto us anyway. The moment my wife stopped drinking, the nosy, awkward speculation kicked in. We got all of these sideways comments from our friends: "Oh, so why are you not drinking tonight? Oh, it's been awhile since we really had some fun -- we should do it up!" I stopped drinking too, but of course nobody said anything about that. In some ways I wish they'd respect our choices, but I'm not totally sure why it matters, besides perhaps the mildly disturbing fact that our friends expect us to have a drink in hand at all times.
My wife's more annoyed with others' speculation than me, to be honest, but I don't blame her. It seems like one of the biggest unspoken aspects of pregnancy is the massive surrendering of control it involves. It's little more than a bit of queasiness for her at the moment, but soon enough there's going to be this whole other organism clearly inhabiting her body. After that, from everything I hear, kids pretty much take over every aspect of your life. Your neat and tidy spaces get constantly tornadoed, your schedules become pure chaos, your hygiene becomes sporadic and unpredictable. Even your thoughts are constantly intercepted by the cute but ceaseless chatter of the wee ones. Yep, that's surrender.
I'm guessing that the better you are at embracing the upheaval, the more you enjoy your life after birth. I suppose there's some kind of spiritual/philosophical lesson in there somewhere, though I'm sure you have no time to ponder it while you're in the thick of things. Maybe the need to keep things secret for awhile has something to do with this lesson: the last, lingering moment of serenity before the hard, world-shattering smack of parenthood.
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