Secrecy

(I originally wrote this post on my Blackberry and then it disappeared. If you are someone who posts via Blackberry, got any pointers?)

I thought it might be worthwhile to explain why it is that keeping this pregnancy under wraps is important to me. There are, in fact, a number of reasons. The first is probably the most obvious reason: the uncertainty over the outcome. We are the type of people who wait until they are out of the first trimester to tell anyone other than our parents or siblings (and with the pregnancy we lost, we didn't/hadn't planned to tell them before the end of the first trimester either and didn't end up telling them until we were pregnant again). I know there are a lot of people who don't wait or who think that doing so is silly, and I have no problem with that approach for them, but we aren't those people. In part, it's the fear of having to untell. In part, it's something else that I can't name -- superstition, maybe? But we are non-tellers.

The second reason can best be summarized as "work." I am nervous about taking two leaves so close together. I am worried about the signals it sends. I am especially worried because of how difficult it has been for me to get any traction work-wise since I came back from leave in March. I am worried that it will be even more difficult doing so a second time. I am worried that I won't get to come back from leave a second time. I am worried that it sends the wrong message about my commitment to my job. Or, perhaps, I am worried that it in fact sends exactly the right message as far as accuracy of content goes, but I'm just not sure I want the message sent. Regardless, postponing telling anyone seems like an easy way to avoid having to confront these issues.

The third reason is our friends and their current IVF cycle. I really hope this is the one for them. But whether it is or it isn't, I don't want to say anything about us while they are still waiting to find out. If it is the one, I want to give them time to enjoy being the pregnant people without anyone else being pregnant too. And if it's not, I want them to have time to grieve before I drop a fucking bomb on them. Man, I hope this is the one, for their sake and for my own -- the guilt might kill me.

So that's three of the prime reasons why we will be keeping this a secret, and why I will be saving this as a draft for now. And why I would love it if I could just never tell anyone at all.