*Jennifer Lopez is finally explaining why she refused to confirm her pregnancy despite multiple reports of baby-related purchases, a sizable baby bump and her tour's costume designer accidentally spilling the beans in an interview.

      "I do realize people want to know because they're interested, but this is the first time I'm going through this," Lopez tells Harper's Bazaar magazine in its February issue. "This is my experience and my husband's experience, and we get to hold that for a little while."

       "I kind of feel like everybody knew anyway," she adds. "I was on tour with a bubble gut!"

       Lopez, 38, finally announced the pregnancy during her Miami concert on Nov. 8, telling the crowd: "Marc and I are expecting a baby!" But the entertainer says she still feels the need to keep most things in her life private.      

       "I'm just feeling too protective to open that door right now," says Lopez. "It's a Pandora's box. It's a destructive lifestyle to be out there. I know because I've lived it. Being on the cover of the tabloids every day for two years – it's hard. You start forgetting who you really are inside."       

       When the baby finally arrives, how long will J.Lo spend away from her hectic schedule?        

       "I don't know – and I like that, because my life has been so planned for so many years," she said. "Once I did the tour, I really just wanted to shut it down, and since then I've had to do three things, including a video. It may not sound like a lot, but you know, as this point, any woman can sympathize. It is a lot. I was ready just to sit."