For months now, on my own blog, I've avoided writing about the one major event that is changing my life more dramatically than any other: pregnancy. Part of it has come from a desire for privacy--and because a first time mother gets enough unsolicited advice to start her own advice column. Another part of it is the fear that as a freelance writer, telling my editors I'm pregnant is akin to kissing goodbye all my contacts. And finally, for the vast majority of my 33 years, I've borne only one identity: writer. Even when calling myself writer was said out the side of my mouth and under my breath, it was still an identity I pulled on like some sort of shiny sequined leotard, proud and a little bit shy both to be wearing it. But mother--that's a far more complex uniform I'm still unused to.

 A woman writer's life is turned upside down far more than a male writer's, I think it's fair to say. From the very basic fact that early pregnancy puts your brain on a sort of valium cruise for at least three months--to the immense challenges of figuring out how to parent in that first year especially. Women who write and have children become "Mothers who write." I believe it's possible that some men's lives are topsy-turvied when they become fathers, but I'm betting that Michael Chabon (bless his amazing father's soul!) is still known as a writer first, father second.

While my friends were wreaking procreative enthusiasm in our twenties, I was writing. I sighed with a feeling of superior relief every time they lamented about getting no sleep, and the writers among us, no writing done. I built a decent freelance career, published two non-fiction books and then somewhere between the end of my 32nd year and the beginning of my 33rd, the tiny little pulsing voice of my biology yelled more loudly than anything else.

I'm already, I admit, a little bit freaked out about the "mommy world" that intelligent women seem to tumble into, like some kind of black hole. I get easily bored talking about brand names and diaper genies. The kids themselves are cool--and I'm not afraid of the messy, wildness of childrearing--there's a lot of that in writing, too. What I am afraid of is the eerie American sterility of parenthood that leaves me feeling hollowed and hungry for depth.

So I won't be taking off the sequined leotard, but I know that I'll be wearing something over it--something large and ungainly at first, and probably a little itchy, that will take some time getting used to.