Oddly enough, I had found a ringworm on Paco the day after we found out we were pregnant. The first person I told that we were pregnant was the vet tech... I had to make sure it was okay for me to be around Paco. Then I called the doctor and made an appointment.... I mean 3 sticks had said yes.
We immediately got on the phone and started to try to set up times to get together with parents and siblings. We had to be discrete... so my family took the longest. Remember, we found out on a Wednesday.
Saturday I cheated and told Mandy, my ASL coworker. I just couldn't keep it in any longer. I mean... it had been all of 3 days that I hadn't told anyone (besides the vet tech). I was about to burst. :)
Monday night Bryan's parents came over and we cooked (all Bryan... let's face it, I don't really cook) them dinner. We got to tell them sitting around our dinner table. Marc and Lori were both surprised and excited. We did swear them to secrecy before letting them leave.
Tuesday night we got to tell our small group. We just waited through prayer requests and then mentioned ours. :)
Wednesday night we met up with Travis, Jessica, and Nathan for dinner. Once everyone got situated, I gave Nathan a late Christmas present. I know it was late, but it was a Disney towel wrap that just didn't get done before the Holidays. It had Mickey Mouse ears and his name on the wrap. When I handed it over, I mentioned this photo that was sent to us on our 2nd anniversary:
I also mentioned that we were a little later than he requested, but that we were finally bringing him a cousin! :)
Thursday night, was finally my families turn. They had been playing hard to get and for some reason couldn't understand why I was causally being so pushy. We met for dinner at Pappadeauxs. I had a ton of Mary Kay to deliver to my mom and sister, but I also had a children's book written by Karen Kingsbury to give to my dad. I opened with "Well... they were both getting stuff, I thought you should too." My dad opened the book and started reading it to the table without missing a beat. The story was about a Daddy and his daughter as she grew up. It went through tea parties and sporting events to prom and then a wedding. There was one page of the Daddy and daughter dancing at the wedding. Then the next page was of the Daddy, his daughter and son-in-law at the hospital having a baby. My mom's eyes were HUGE throughout the squealing creaming with excitement! They were a little bit excited to say the least.
We waited until after the 7 week doctor appointment to tell the rest of the family. We told Mimi and Gramps by asking how many great-grandchildren would be at Christmas this year? She responded with 4, and we told her it would actually be 5. Glee is the only way to describe that moment.
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We decided to wait until after the 1st trimester before announcing the baby to anyone else which was a couple weeks after Spring Break. It was really neat to watch different people as we would tell them. My favorite group left to tell might have been my students.
The week after I found out I was pregnant, my 7th period started giving me grief about having a baby. It was a class of all girls and 1 boy so they felt they were entitled to discuss my family planning. It was the freakiest thing ever. They didn't know, but it was almost like they did. I finally told them on a Tuesday. I had planned on telling them Monday, but we had state testing and I didn't see them. I walked in and with sheer excitement told them that I was pregnant and all their teasing was for nothing because I had been pregnant the whole time. The class blinked a couple of times and then said "yeah right... like we're going to fall for that one." I looked around in confusion, I wasn't sure why they didn't believe me. Then they yelled out "Today's April 1st. We're not buying it!"
Excuse me? I had accidentally chosen April Fools Day to finally tell them I was pregnant and now they didn't believe me. My bad. I had to pull the ultrasound out from my purse before they started to believe me, and then only half of the class wanted to. They all were acting like they didn't want to get duped and me say just kidding. One girl yelled out "look at the name on the ultrasound, you can't fake that." It wasn't until then that I finally had their belief.
The next day I had the pleasure of telling the rest of my students, they all came in saying they had heard I was pregnant. My response to that was... "Guys, what was yesterday? April Fools. Think about it!" They believed that and then I got to tell them for myself and see their reactions to the truth.
Even thought it wasn't how I thought I would tell them, (let's face it... I'm not cleaver enough to come up with something like that on my own) it ended up being the best way. I got to be a part of seeing how they responded. I was truly shocked and blessed by how sweet my students were once they knew. For the rest of the school year, they would manage themselves in the classroom. When someone was starting to act up, the rest of the class would pounce and get on the them "She's pregnant, you can't talk to a pregnant lady like that!" And then the one out of line would calm back down and get back to business. In college they teach that that is the best classroom management... using the peers. I just hadn't realized exactly how to do it until now. I hope I can carry this over for the rest of my teaching career... just minus the pregnant part. :)
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