IS IT TOO SOON TO TELL YOU I’M PREGNANT?

Why I’m Breaking The First Trimester Rule

I had my first positive pregnancy test on April 6. The line was so faint, I had a hard time believing it was true. My husband, an innate optimist, immediately started celebrating while I tried to temper my expectations. After all, there are few things less guaranteed than a full-term pregnancy in your mid-30’s. Especially when you’ve recently had a string of life-changing bad things happen to you and are on defense for the next shoe to drop.

But over the course of the next few days, and a series of darker lines, I began to accept my new reality: I was pregnant. My body was able to do the thing I had zero proof it could do before. That didn’t mean I was ensured to have a baby, though. Miscarriages are extremely common and for those first few weeks I worried that anything I did “wrong” could lead to an abrupt end to this new phase of life. When I started spotting the day of my first blood test, I thought, well, there goes that. It made sense that I was primed to expect the worst. My family has always been extremely cautious when it comes to pregnancy, and I have an anxiety disorder. As I slowly began to tell my inner circle the huge news, I offset the news with a warning: It’s very early. Anything could happen.

But then I realized, anything could happen still applies after the first trimester. Pregnancy is a masterclass in uncertainty. Keeping the news to myself until I was “in the clear” no longer made sense because “the clear” doesn’t exist. Even if I am lucky enough to deliver a baby, there is no promise of what their life will look like or how long it will last.