Telling our Families

While we have told a few people about our impending arrival, we were holding off on telling our parents, and for good reason.  To start with, my family lives two hours away and I don’t see them often.  Two, both mother’s have big mouths.  The concept of waiting to tell their friends the news was just not going to sink in.

We started with my Mom, Dad, and sister the day I hit 9 weeks.  We went back home and poor Rebecca had been busting to spread the news.  She has some self-control, unlike my Mother.  Both Fenway and Rebecca had “big sister” shirts we put on after we arrived.  The problem was Fenway’s said “big sister” on the belly and on the back it said, “I have a secret, rub my belly to find out.”  My Mom assumed we were pulling some sort of weird joke on her and it took my sister (she had figured it out) to convince my Mom to just look at poor Fenway’s belly.  She yelled “Are you serious!?” at least 1500 times.  It was all very humorous and obviously very exciting.  My sister immediately produced onsies she had been slowly stashing away and my Dad, with his Alzheimer’s, still has no idea we were even there for the weekend.  We eventually followed up with telling my brother and his wife.  She cried, he nodded a “cool” and went about his business.  Very him.

Onto the next set of parents.  It was my MIL’s birthday and we joined her for lunch.  Both of my in-laws are deaf (I can’t sign, my Husband can) so we opted for a card that basically stated we are going to quit calling you Mom and move on to calling you Grandma.  This elicited a lot of smiles and clapping from his mother and his Dad gave a nod of approval.  After that it was lunch as normal.

I have another ultrasound at 12 weeks and from there we will Facebook announce and call extended family and Grandparents.  My Mother, on the other hand, is having no idea how to keep her trap shut.  She lives in a world where nothing bad will happen and she just thinks we should tell everyone.  I live in a world called reality and still fear the worst case scenarios.  While those scary thoughts are fading as each week passes, they are still there.

The number one reason I am so glad we kept this close to us for a while was to give ourselves time to get used to the idea.  Everyone has opinions, advice and a million questions.  Just learning you are pregnant is overwhelming enough, let alone feeling the need to make sure you appease everyone else.  The Husband and I were able to adjust to this new norm.  We were able to think about how we wanted to handle this pregnancy without outside influences.  I was able to alleviate some pressure keeping it a secret and how often can you and your Husband share something like that? It has actually brought us closer and strengthen our marriage in a new way.

As far as the Mother’s go-the mayhem has begun.