Friends and family claim they knew I was pregnant even before I broke the news because I was always tired. Didn’t matter what the time of day was, if they asked me how I was doing I was tired. Silly me.

This weekend we had guests staying with us, and the wife was very obviously pregnant. She was slim as could be but the signs were unmistakable. I’d heard through the grape vine she was expecting, but they hadn’t told us the news, so we figured that she is still in that sensitive first trimester, before people generally “go public.”

I’m guessing she didn’t mind if we found out.  Either that or she was as clueless as I was about hiding the symptoms. So what are those early pregnancy signs that you should know about if you’re trying to keep YOUR pregnancy a secret?

1. Feeling ill: She’s been “not feeling well” the past couple months. Hmmm, suspicious enough to start out with. The infamous morning sickness, perhaps?

More than half of all pregnant women experience morning sickness. Morning sickness is the nauseated feeling you get during pregnancy. Morning sickness can be, but is not always, accompanied with vomiting. The nausea is often a result of the increased hormones in your body. Many health care providers think morning sickness is a good sign because it means the placenta is developing well.

2. Fatigue: She retired early on Friday night. She showed up the next morning and then took a little cat-nap on the couch around 11 AM. Then she took an afternoon nap following lunch. At dinner time she was already wilting and I caught her laying her head down at the dinner table!

It’s particularly common during the first trimester. What most women remember about this stage is a constant feeling of fatigue. Being pregnant puts a strain on your entire body, which can make you awfully tired. Even night owls may find themselves struggling to stay awake long enough to watch their favorite eight o’clock show.

3. Frequent urination: I think she went to the restroom 74 times in 24 hours. Ok, slight exaggeration. But she was peeing A LOT!

Why do you suddenly need to go all the time? It’s mostly because the amount of blood in your body increases dramatically when you get pregnant, which leads to a lot of extra fluid getting processed through your kidneys and ending up in your bladder. Eventually, you may also feel pressure on your bladder from your growing uterus.

4. Famished! She appeared in the kitchen bright and early, it was 7 AM. I’d been up since 6 AM, as my kids haven’t realized that weekends are meant for sleeping in. “Do you have any of that carrot cake left over? I woke up in the middle of the night and I was hungry but I didn’t have anything handy to snack on.” OK, come on, did she really think I would overlook THAT one??

As your pregnancy progresses you might be finding that, no matter how much or how often you eat, you still feel ravenous at all hours of the day and night. That’s not surprising, because the baby growing inside you has calorific needs of his own. Whilst that doesn’t mean it’s a good idea to eat anything and everything, it does explain why you’re waking up hungry in the middle of the night.

So there you go. If you think I’m misreading the signs, by all means let me know. But I’m sure we’ll be hearing some good news soon enough, and then I can let her know how happy we are for them… even though we already know all about it!