There’s these Tiktoks going around about the “best time to get pregnant”—the ideal month to conceive, what season to suffer through the first trimester, the perfect month to give birth in time to “snap back” to a summer bod.
Not that any of us have the luxury to plan—with certainty of a favorable outcome—the exact timing of conception!
But, these social posts are all in good fun. And they do highlight an interesting truth: how an experience of pregnancy can be defined (in part) by its concurrence with the natural seasons of the earth.
While my own pregnancy does not quite fit the (very subjective) “ideal” timeline outlined in any of these TikToks, I know this baby has come in his own impeccable and perfect timing, even if it only makes sense to me.
And for that I am so thankful:
That my earliest, hardest weeks happened during naturally quiet periods for work and business—allowing me open time and space to take it easy.
That I would happen to be with my family, especially my mom, as I anxiously reached (and passed!) how far along I was when I miscarried my first pregnancy eight months prior.
That we’d be able to share openly with family and friends right around the holiday season.
That on Christmas Day my blood test results came in, revealing it’s a boy.
That my bump will be at its biggest at a time when I can just live in bike shorts and big t-shirts (and not have to bring a baby home in a snowstorm).
These past few days, I discovered another fun synchronicity: the natural call for spring cleaning this time of year, super-charged by pregnancy nesting mode.
Seriously, I feel like the Energizer (Easter) bunny, puttering around and purging the corners of disorganization and all the accumulations of things we’ve outgrown.1
One little stack that I am keeping: a collection of thin short journals I kept while in college. A time capsule of my brain from 2013-2015, with this glorious gem from February 2013: “One day I’ll dress my babies in Yale and Shake Shack onesies.” 😭
RIP to my husband’s 16-year-old Sonicare.
Yale and Shake Shack onesies?! Too good!! And maybe throw in a Substack one for good measure 😂 The 16yo Sonicare footnote cracked me up!! Love those little details, and this beautiful list of all the ways it’s unfolding in perfect timing :)