Spreading the News

One year ago this weekend we finally shared the news with our families that a little baby was on its way.

We were heading down to St Louis mid-May to tell our parents, under the guise of a dual celebration for Mother's Day and my dad's birthday. We had known about the baby for about 6 weeks at this point and seen a doctor a few weeks earlier to see the heartbeat, but wanted to wait to tell the family in person. Meanwhile I tried to throw my family off every chance I got. I made little comments throughout those weeks about how long it'd be until we had kids, that we wouldn't be starting for a few years, etc. Heehee.

The Friday night we arrived relatively late and were sitting down to dessert. My sister and brother-in-law had sent my mom flowers for an early Mother’s day present and I said, well if they gave you their present early, we will too. My mom tried to insist that we wait until Sunday but I said it was just something small for the two of them and that they should open it then. Calmly, barely looking and talking through the entire thing, my Mom unwrapped the box and looked down at it in shock. Inside was a Baby's First Christmas onesie, so tiny, folded up in the tissue. She whipped her head to look at me, eyes wide and stunned look on her face and said “Is this what I think it is? Is this for real?” I think she thought we were playing a cruel joke on her. My dad, who was barely paying attention before that, jumped out of his seat, looked in the box to see the onesie that was inside and lifted his head with the same wide-eyed, open-mouthed completely shocked expression on his face and said “Are you serious??” I was just laughing and both came to hug me and Tim. I have to say that I teared up at that point, I was so relived to finally tell them and so happy at our news! They both had thought that it would be a very long time before we had kids, so they couldn’t have been more shocked!!!

The next day over lunch we told my sister Melanie. I hadn’t planned out how we’d tell her, but the opportunity came up at lunch, when she was talking about celebrating that weekend. I said, “Yes, we have a lot to celebrate. Dad’s birthday, Mother’s Day, I’m pregnant.” And she just smiled and sat there. A few seconds later she looked around the table and said “what??!” I think she was waiting for the laughter to start at my joke, but no one laughed and it finally hit her what I’d said. I told my other sister later that afternoon over Skype and I think at first they thought we were telling them that we were getting another dog. But nope, it was a baby. They must have found the news so inspiring that wouldn't you know, they decided to make one of their own that very next weekend - Caroline is exactly 8 weeks younger than Barrett!