Watch out: it’s contagious. Maybe it’s like when you get a new car – all of a sudden, all you see are Toyotas everywhere.

Everyone’s pregnant. Babies are going to be dropping like crazy this fall. You know who you are.

Looking back, here's what I should have kept top of mind when I was pregnant.

• Even if you don’t feel all that great a lot of the time, you’re beloved by everyone. You have elevated status in the world right now. As you get bigger, strangers will stare at you, smile at you, hold doors for you and ask you how far along you are. Enjoy it.
• Don’t be afraid, and don’t worry. There’s no point.
• Moisturize! Moisturize! Moisturize!
• A whole new community is waiting for you on the other side. Despite your most noble intentions, you will find yourself having entire conversations about poop. And you’ll enjoy it.
• No matter how bewildered you feel right now, you will eventually get the hang of the following: a) picking up your floppy newborn; b) cutting teeny tiny fingernails; c) falling asleep and/or waking up in five seconds flat; d) breastfeeding; e) doing fifteen things at once, while breastfeeding.
• Don’t buy into grandiose declarations from people on the bus and in the grocery store. About pregnancy, about birth, about your life as you know it ending.
• Not that your life as you know it is ending – but go out and see movies. Now. Lots of them.
• Your baby may be covered in acne, be “a waker”, have forcep dents or a franciscan monk’s pattern baldness. But don’t worry. Your baby will be the most soft, the most delicious in the entire world. And he’s all yours. There’s no feeling quite like it.