Keeping things under wraps is difficult. Jamie, our business reporter, is two months further along in her pregnancy than I am, and there are tons of women at church who are expecting.

I’m pretty sure Penelope, the Herald’s hypochondriac health reporter, suspects something. I’ve looked up several times to find her watching me from her desk in the far corner of the newsroom.

I don’t know which came first, the hypochondria or her beat, but she’s got the worst case of psychologically induced illnesses I’ve ever seen. Whatever she’s investigating, she’s got, prostate cancer excepted. I think the time she wrote about psoriasis was the worst. Just being around her constant scratching convinced the rest of the newsroom we had it.

The good news is, she’s so well-informed about every possible ailment that she probably won’t guess my true diagnosis. And since she’s so frequently out sick, she won’t be around to tell anyone if she does happen to guess correctly.

Chip told me yesterday that he wants to keep our secret for as long as possible in order to put off hearing all the pregnancy horror stories people feel compelled to share. Here’s a sample of actual comments made over the years to our pregnant friends:

• "You're sure you're not carrying triplets? 'Cause honey, you're big enough to be carrying triplets. Here, hold my purse a sec. I want to take a picture of you on my cell phone. Nobody on Facebook is going to believe you're just carrying one."

• “You’re thirty-five? My aunt waited until she was thirty-five to have a baby. Poor Cousin Emmett. All the kids made fun of him because he was touched in the head.”

• “Yeah, by the time the baby finally came out, the place looked like a crime scene. There was blood everywhere.”

• “You’re pregnant? That’s great! I had a friend who was pregnant.” Pause. “She died.”