The Secret

Why do we keep it a secret when we're pregnant? Yes, there is the greater risk of miscarriage during your first three months of pregnancy, and the difficulty of negotiating all of the messages of regret and sorry and sympathy would be difficult, perhaps better simply avoided, yet, still, there has to be some telling, some sharing, some holding of the precious news in community. Yet I've found myself a bit bound by the cultural norm of keeping the secret. And I don't want to be bound. 


Well, I'm lucky to have made the friendship of dear Lisa. Lisa is my "best borrowed friend" since we moved to Boulder last year. Lisa is a friend of Jim's. Jim is Claire's husband. Claire is a gal who Mark dated in college and has remained a dear friend to both of us. So, Lisa is borrowed from Claire. And I love Lisa. And Lisa doesn't seem to be so good at keeping secrets. Which I find quite refreshing because I think I'm *supposed* to keep a secret. And I don't want to! I'm pregnant and Mark and I are going to create a family and I'm SO HAPPY! 


So I told Lisa right away, minutes after I took a pregnancy test. I called her at work and left her a message. She called back right away. What welcome enthusiasm! She reminded me in that tender conversation to tell only the few people who you know can hold the early news with you and for you. Well, it was only about a week later that I was at a get-together with friends, many of them Lisa's friends, and the word was OUT. OUT!  Lisa!? What is Lisa saying?! Melissa's pregnant! Dear me--"is this OK"-- is running through my mind. I guess it will have to be! Lisa's grin is overpowering--how could I be angry? She is nearly as excited as I am about this little person growing inside me! So, my news is NOT a secret among Lisa and that circle of friends. 


We have also told others who we know and trust to hear the news in these early weeks. That has been delightful. My sister Christy, not someone I think of as necessarily tender or emotional, cried. My sister Jody, who I DO think of as tender, could only keep saying "aw....". Kathleen's burst of excitement and joy was as much a gift as her raucous laugher ALWAYS is. Jacqui's care package that arrived a few days after I told her was the sweetest delivery of love and hope that I could have imagined. John said "I've not heard better news in my life." We are already surrounded by so much love. Peach is being bathed in it as I write. 

Here are pictures Lisa took last week at 9 weeks.