Former NBC Sitcom Star Pregnant With Her First Child

Katrina Bowden is pregnant. The 30 Rock actress, 36, is expecting her first baby with her musician husband, Adam Taylor.

Speaking exclusively with PEOPLE, Bowden says the pregnancy had been a bonding experience between her and Taylor that she wasn’t expecting. But it’s one she’s welcomed.

“It definitely has brought us closer together,” she said. “In the beginning, it was a little bit scary, and it’s still a little bit scary because it’s something so unknown and so different. It brought us closer together talking about how we want to parent, names, just preparing for something that we’ve never had to think about before, so it’s definitely bonded us in a way that we’ve never bonded before.”

They found out about the pregnancy while Taylor was on a ski trip with friends and Bowden opted not to wait to take a test upon their return home. “Adam was on a ski trip with his friends, and I took a test. I was going to wait until he got home, but I couldn’t wait,” she remembers. “Then, I told him when he got home, and we were both very excited, so…I was really hard to keep it to myself for a full day.”

They were both “shocked” and “excited.” The pregnancy was planned but they didn’t expect it to happen so quickly.

Most of their friends are already parents, so they’re relying on their village to help them navigate their new world. “It’s something you really need to prepare for, so I’ve been trying to do that,” she says. “Other than that, just trying to stay healthy and enjoy it, because right now it feels like it’s going to be forever. On the bad days [and] on the difficult days, it feels like forever, but I know it’s going to go by in a heartbeat, so just trying to embrace it while I have it.”

Avid travelers, they don’t plan on slowing down once their bundle of joy is here. “We really plan to, in the beginning [during] the first year, try to travel just to get the baby used to being in new places and around different environments,” Bowden says. “We want to try to do a big trip or a good, fun vacation type of trip, the two of us with the baby, and then just immerse the baby in something new and something different and different experiences.”