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Parenthood, Young Married Mom

May 6, 2010

You Say It Best When You Say Nothing At All

One of the fun discoveries in the first few months of being pregnant was how many ways we managed to tell family and friends the good news without actually saying it.  It can certainly be daunting to say, “I’m pregnant” or “We’re having a baby” out loud.  But even at times when I wanted to say it, I was surprised to see how many times and in how many ways I didn’t even have the chance.

A week or two before we’d planned to start spreadin’ the news, a close friend of mine had a dream that I was pregnant.  She emailed me just to check in and see if it meant anything.  Once I regained my ability to speak, I called her and told her she’s pretty much psychic.

I called another friend shortly after that and told her I had some big news.  That’s all it took for her.  About fifteen minutes into the giggles and screaming, her roommate, another close friend, came home.  I heard her say, “L has something to tell you.”  Aaaaand scene.  Two for two; done and done.

My favorite is when we’re catching up with friends we haven’t seen in a couple of weeks.  I soon learned it’s imperative that any and all of their news is fully explored before we chime in.  Inevitably, and like it or not, the baby trumps just about everything else—grad school, job changes, awesome new TVs, whatever.  Then when they finally ask, “So what’s new with you?” John and I kind of knowingly look at one another, and before our “Well . . .” trails off completely, a happy revelation streams across our friends’ faces, like someone just told them they’d won a million bucks.

After a while, it was starting to get strange that I never had to say it.  I hadn’t told almost anyone at work, and I wasn’t showing, so some days during the week I kind of forgot I was pregnant.  Other days it was a little more difficult to forget. . . . But as the weeks have gone on, and it’s more and more apparent that I am indeed pregnant, what I’ve been most grateful for is not the giddy glee of letting folks in on our secret, but the love and enthusiasm we’ve had from so many people.  John and I feel incredibly loved and eternally blessed, and I think we can say the same for the Peanut.

A lot of that, too, came from telling our family, especially our parents—who, like most of the people at work, knew before I had the chance to tell them.

For my parents, the news was more of a confirmation than a surprise. My mom, aunt, and grandma had been worried about me since I passed out (see that story here), so when John and I called my parents one Sunday night at about ten-thirty, I think they were glad to hear us admit it.  Once we did, my mom told me she—and my aunt and my grandma—had known from the first phone call after that fateful evening at Verizon.  Again, the mother’s instinct is a stronger confirmation than modern science, I love it!

For John’s parents, for his mom at least, the combination of an eleven pm phone call on the aforementioned Sunday night and our asking her to go into the room with John’s dad with the phone on speaker let the cat out of the bag.  The tone of her “Oh, okay,” let us both know that she was on to us right away.  A few weeks later, we let Peanut him/herself tell John’s siblings.  We went to celebrate one of their birthdays and brought a card addressed to an uncle—a new uncle!  It took a minute to put the pieces together, but the delighted shock was fun then, too.

As much fun as it’s been to let all of the important people in our lives know about the Peanut, it’s nice now that other people know.  No secret keeping, no wondering which top to wear to work.  Just settling into this happy phase—the glorious second trimester!—and getting ready for the next one.

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