Mei Xiang (Photo via National Zoo)

Mei Xiang, the National Zoo’s female giant panda, might be pregnant, the zoo announced Friday morning. Then again, she might not be.

Veterinarians at the zoo observed a rise in Mei Xiang’s urinary progesterone, meaning that it’ll be 40 to 55 days before we find out if the bear is with child or if she’s just having a pseudopregnancy. Mei Xiang is undergoing regular ultrasound examinations, but because panda fetuses do not begin developing until the last few weeks of gestation, it is damn nigh impossible to tell right now if another cub is on the way.

But if Mei Xiang does turn out to be carrying another cub this year, the first order of business will be for the National Zoo to order up a paternity test. After Mei Xiang and the zoo’s male giant panda, Tian “Weakly Loaded” Tian, failed again to breed naturally, Mei was artificially inseminated with two frozen sperm samples. One was extracted from Tian Tian in 2003, the other came from Gao Gao, a panda at the San Diego Zoo that has sired five cubs.

Meanwhile, the zoo adds that Mei Xiang is doing all the usual things that a possibly pregnant panda does, including building a nest in her corner of the panda exhibit. Part of the exhibit will soon be closed off to shield Mei Xiang from public view during the final weeks of her maybe being pregnant. But she will still be observable on the zoo’s panda surveillance cameras, which were recently upgraded thanks to some panda sex money from the Ford Motor Company.