Now, to be honest, I used to quite enjoy all this. As someone who works alone in the house every day, I used to like making a load of temporary new friends every time I walked my swelling form down the high street. It used to bring me a strange sense of security to think that all these people felt they had some tiny little stake in my having a healthy baby safely delivered.

But here’s the thing. Actually, two things. One, this was only true much later on in my pregnancy. An estimated one in five pregnancies miscarry before 12 weeks (which is why so many choose to keep things quiet until that crucial milestone passes) and during that period you feel more vulnerable than you would have ever believed possible. Whatever I did in the first three months, it was done with my hand unconsciously – and absurdly, given that the foetus is about the size of a peanut and couldn’t be better cushioned if it was in a DFS warehouse – cupping my belly with the mantra constantly beating in my under-brain ‘Please don’t let it leave, please don’t let it leave.’ And two, I wasn’t already considered public property by an entire nation, Commonwealth and several parts in between.

The papers are already filled with name predictions, boy-girl speculations, dissections of Kate’s family tree to decide if her intense morning sickness could be the result of harbouring twins, and gleeful hand-rubbing at the trendsetting power she will have. Which buggymaker, nappy brand and cot supplier will see their fortunes transformed when the royal baby emerges? Picture editors are filling the pages with photos retrofitting motives to Kate’s every gesture, trying to determine exactly how long she has been pregnant (a dress with pleats! To disguise the enormous bump caused by a two-day-old embryo!) and predicting the all-important date of delivery.

It is a terrible intrusion already and there is doubtless more to come. The awful thing is, however, that I now understand the impulse to know everything. More than that, I, in some dark, irrational, unchangeable part of my soul, feel it. After you’ve had a baby, every pregnancy you come into contact with seems to offer a chance to relive the best bits of your own experience and reconfigure the worst – to get those bits right, if only vicariously. There is a deep urge to share your ‘wisdom’, offer warnings, get involved, help the woman avoid what pain and pitfalls she can.

Marry that essentially benign, human urge to the media’s malign, corporate urge to shift stock and scoop rivals, however, and you have a toxic brew indeed. The best thing we can do for the Duke, Duchess and Peanut of Cambridge is to restrain ourselves and hope that without our slavering purchase fuel, the papers will do likewise."

You can contact Lucy by email at lucy.mangan@stylist.co.uk or follow her at twitter.com/lucymangan

“Wonderful news tabloids! Kate is pregnant”