Have I mentioned I’m already feeling behind?

When the sticks announced the news I started reading. Some of the misconceptions I already knew– like “Morning Sickness” is rarely confined to just an AM puke. The nausea that keyed me into something being up was an all day occurrence and definitely not confined to just the morning.

The real shocker though was when I learned how pregnancy was counted.

Right now, I’m 9 weeks pregnant.

Read online and you may find statements like, “yes, this is confusing, because you’re in your 10th week, but it’s counted as being 9 weeks.” Like, right now I’m 31 but I’m in my 32nd year.

That’s not the confusing part at all! The confusing part is that I didn’t even conceive until 2 or 3 weeks pregnant. The count starts from the first day of my last period.

So does this mean every month since I started menstruating, I’ve been pregnant for a couple of weeks? When the nurse asked me if this was my first pregnancy and I said yes, was that a lie?

I knew that pregnancy lasted 40 weeks and it was actually closer to 10 months, not 9, but I didn’t know that even that was a lie. At 40 weeks, I will have only been growing a baby in me for 37-38 weeks.

At least the lie is consistent. It’s not like Celsius and Fahrenheit and needing to convert.

So when asked, I will continue with the deception and say, “I’m 9 weeks pregnant*” where the * subtly says “not really, but that’s how doctors decided to count it, so I’ll go with it.”

Can you hear the * in my voice?