Editor’s Note: Jenna is blogging about her adventures through pregnancy. This is her second installment of Jenna's (Baby) Food for Thought.
Someone asked me the other day where I lived and, without hesitation, I said, `’No man’s land.”
“Where’s that?” she asked.
`’Oh, it’s that annoying place between too pregnant and not pregnant enough,” I told her. “Where you’re not big enough to look pregnant, but you’re not small enough to escape the wandering belly stares which ask, did she gain weight or what?!?”
So here I am, living in “No man’s land,” seemingly carbo-loading, where my street name is DESIRE A BURRITO ALL THE TIME and my zip code is ONE-THREE-OH-WHAT-A-WEEK-IT’S-BEEN.
A week ago today, I braved the murky waters of uncertainty and made a quiet little announcement on TODAY that my partner, NBC News foreign correspondent Stephanie Gosk, and I are expecting a baby. Remember when you were a kid and you’d toss a water balloon up in the air and then squeeze your eyes real tight with trepidation as you’d wait for it to explode? Well, I squeezed my eyes tight when I got off the set last week awaiting the balloon to break. I waited all day Wednesday, all day Thursday, all day Friday, all weekend and by Monday, when the balloon still hadn’t broken, I wondered if perhaps this balloon was strong enough to withstand any hard surface.
Turns out, it was.
I’m beyond elated to say that I was flooded with positive feedback, email after email offering kudos for the message and congrats for the pregnancy. I was patted on the proverbial back for telling my story, lifted up for my courage but then brought right back down to earth with questions of whether my work BFF Lester Holt is the baby’s father. (He’s not. Nor is Matt, nor Willie, nor Al ... so no more questions about that, please.)
Was there the occasional nasty note? Of course, but that’s fine. We’re all entitled to our opinion, as long as we’re not mean about it. I mean, am I totally annoyed by concert goers who hold up their bright iPhones right in front of me to record the live show they paid good money to attend? Yup, I am, but I’m not calling them at their work telling them how I feel. And don’t get me started on first-timers at Costco. But do I march up to those people and preach my religious views to them and their big empty carts going the wrong way down the aisle? That would be no. We can all opine till we’re blue in the face... but let’s color in the lines and play fair, shall we?
Bottom line, though, is that the vast majority of the emails, tweets and Facebook comments I’ve received have been wonderful. Thank you for taking the time to send a few words our way. They have not, will not and won’t ever go unnoticed or unappreciated.
The other thing I’m starting to realize is that for all the baby books out there, all the how to’s on pregnancy, all the YouTube tutorials (yes, I recently spent two hours watching Youtube clips on the perfect diaper change), there are a lot of things they don’t tell you, but should about this whole baby thing. Here are a few I’ve discovered:
- You pee 157 times a day. I’m convinced that Kathy, who sits outside my office, thinks I have a disturbingly small bladder.
- Morning sickness is officially the hardest thing to hide. My editor asked me (in all seriousness) if I had mad cow disease because I was sick for three straight months.
- You WILL need a bigger bra, so just buy one now before your cameraman asks your producer who casually asks you if you’ve had, um, enhancements.
- You will get TV-nostalgic... I was in Target this weekend buying old seasons of “Knight Rider,” “Hart to Hart” and “My Two Dads” (no comment).
- You tend to want to clean your house often (nesting, I believe?) All I know is I walk around with a bottle of 409 like it’s going out of style. Steph has to pry it away from me before bed.
- And this week’s big lesson in babylove... you actually start talking aloud to the unborn little girl in your belly. I’ve been caught a few times making small talk with my digestive track as if I were a loon.
Barring some shoddy math, I’m at the halfway mark now: 20 weeks down, 20 to go. Let’s hope the second half isn’t nearly as dramatic as the first, but I fully appreciate those hurdles are what will make the next 20 weeks a breeze, she said with a smile.
I’m sure I’ll learn more along the way, but I’m finding that the best way to know everything there is to know about pregnancy is to acknowledge that you’ll never even come close.
Previously:
'Best news of the day': Friends, strangers react to Jenna Wolfe's baby announcement