We’re having a gorilla baby. 25-year-old first-time mom Ndjia is pregnant. Location: Los Angeles Zoo

We recently found out that one of our western lowland gorillas is pregnant. Her name is Njia. We are really excited to share this journey. This is really exciting news for us. We haven't had a baby gorilla here at the zoo in over 20 years. These animals are critically endangered in the wild so having an insurance population in zoos is extremely important. We want everybody to see the amazing amount of care and work and planning that goes into caring for all the animals in our zoo. So she doesn't really look pregnant. You might notice that all the gorillas have big bellies. It's called a browse belly. It's because they eat a lot of leaves and that ferments in there and it gives them big bellies. Really up until the time of birth, the moms act like they always do. They forage during the day. They hang out with the other members of the group. Once she does have the baby, we don't know if that will be during the day. Maybe it'll be on exhibit. So once she has the baby, we'll assess the situation and once we can tell that everything's fine, then their routine will go right back to normal. So she'll be out on their habitat during the day and hopefully everybody can see the baby. It's important that animals in zoos can raise their own babies. We only intervene if there's something going wrong or if there's something critical, if the baby's not thriving. It's very important for their social development, especially with an animal like a gorilla that lives in a family group. They learn everything from their moms and from the other gorillas around them. Just like life in the wild, you never really know what's going to happen. I think it's important to tell the story and people can see really all the care that goes into our animals. No matter what happens, we're going to be there for India and the other gorillas and we're hoping for a happy outcome.