They always tell you that it’s just stupid to tell people you’re pregnant before 12 weeks. At least wait until the 8 week mark, when you’re past the time when most people have miscarriages. Save it for the beginning of the second trimester to avoid the pain of having to tell everyone who was just so happy for you that you’ve lost the baby.

That always sounded like good advice. And then Sunday night, I finally. Finally. After five years of trying and hating myself and wondering what in the fuck was wrong with me. Five years plus most of my careless adult life of getting negative pregnancy tests so that I wondered if my body was incapable of producing HCG,

I. am. pregnant.

I am pregnant. Me. Pregnant.

And I can’t stop telling people. On Sunday night, I took a test because it’s just something I do sometimes and there was such a faint positive line on it. I wasn’t sure if it was real, so I consulted some friends who said that they saw a line, too. J also saw kind of a line but was dubious. Then the next morning, the line was a bit darker.

I told my parents and all of my close friends and, as of today, everyone I like at work. I have pretty much sworn everyone to secrecy even though I can’t stop telling people. I figure it’s like this:

One of the joys in my life was hearing my dad’s voice crack as he congratulated us both, and I loved what my sister in law said about joy emerging from within me, and I love that my mom cried and started knitting things and holy, holy, it’s been wonderful to have this little bit of magic for the last week. No matter what happens, I’m going to hold on to it for dear life. And it makes me realize that I’m going to be a parent. I’ve crossed into a world that I now share with most women that felt completely alien to me before, and it’s wonderful.

I walk around my neighborhood every evening, and the last few nights, I’ve been scouting which houses appear to have kid stuff in the back yards. I’m going to need to know those people. My kid is going to play over at people’s houses, maybe. Now the house we bought in the neighborhood we bought it is just fucking perfect with its proximity to a park and the cul-de-sac with basketball hoops and a million trick-or-treaters.

This is what happiness feels like. What a profound relief. What profound joy.