Spilling the Beans

You only get ONE chance to tell people that you're expecting for the first time, so it's important (or at least it was to me) to make it memorable.  I wanted to make sure to tell our immediate families in person, which meant we had to wait until Father's Day weekend before we had a chance to see my family.  So we had to keep it in until I was 9 whole weeks along!  That's a long time to keep a secret.  But it was totally worth it. Andy and I had different ideas on how we should spill the beans, so we agreed that we would tell my family my way and his dad his way.  Sounds fair, right?  (I still think my way was better!)

We got there on Saturday morning and somehow didn't get around to getting dad to open his Father's Day gifts until lunchtime.  Talk about torture.  I can't believe they didn't figure it out.  These people always know everything.  Good or bad, they just always seem to know.  When Andy and I got engaged, of course my parents were the first people I called after I had finished crying.  They answer the phone and I excitedly squeal 'We're engaged!!!'  And what do they say?  'We know.'  That's it.  Now granted, he had asked their permission and told them the whole plan of when, where, and how it was going to happen, but still.  At least pretend to be excited.  So, because of that, I wanted to surprise my sister with the news so I would get a good reaction.  (As it turns out, my parents were legitimately surprised and excited about the news, but I'm still glad I went with my original plan.)


So we gave dad his card and gift, which was just a silly little thing.  He's a big kid at heart, so he actually enjoys gifts like that.

Then we brought out the second gift and announced that it was a 'Family Gift' and I thought it was only fair that Andrea, my sister, open it since it will be so long until her birthday.  She was totally thrilled by this (who DOESN'T like opening presents!) and I was glad that she accepted that without arguing or being suspicious!  A few months ago, I made a super cute little onesie with this specific plan in mind.  Well ok, I didn't 'make' it - I bought it plain from the store and then stenciled the design on, but still.  So she peeked in the bag and saw that it was a t-shirt of some kind and couldn't figure out why I would be giving a t-shirt as a family gift.  I thought the surprise was blown, but I calmly told her to just pull it out and she would understand.  Enjoy the following pictures for the rest of the story...

This was followed by lots of squeals and giggles and then she literally knocked me over with hugs.  It was perfect.  I just wish I had taken video instead of just pictures.

The next day, we spilled the beans to Andy's dad.  It was Father's Day, so we went over to his house for lunch right after church.  After lunch, we gave him his card, which read 'Happy Father's day, Grandpa'.  He was kind of confused for a minute, thinking we just made a mistake and then said 'Oh, am I a Grandpa yet?', to which we replied yes.  Then he laughed for about five minutes and kept saying 'Well that will change things!'  It was pretty funny.

Then there was the facebook announcement a few weeks later where I posted the video that most of you probably saw.  If you didn't, go to youtube and look it up.  It's a parody of 'Sexy and I know it' called 'Pregnant and I know it!'.  Hilarious!

Then this past Sunday we spilled the beans at church.  Andy made me stand up and make the announcement because he doesn't like talking in front of crowds.  During the sharing of joys and concerns that we do before the prayer, I stood up and said that we had a joy that was also a concern.  At this point, people still hadn't figured it out.  I was amazed.  I'd practiced my speech for a while so that I wouldn't fumble around it, but after saying 'We're expecting a baby in January, so we're very excited...' I almost broke down crying.  Stupid hormones.  After a few seconds of recovery, I was able to continue with '...we'd really appreciate prayers for health and safety and some sanity in the meantime!'  People were totally surprised and we were a little late for lunch because of all the wonderful people who wanted to congratulate us.  It really is a pretty great church.  My favorite comment though came from an older gentleman who sits with his wife in the pew in front of us every week.  Their kids are a few years older than we are, and they have some very young grandkids that don't live close by.  Every week, at some point during the sermon, she passes back her bag of candy to us so that we can have a treat.  We love them.  Well after the service he turns around and gives me a hug and says congrats and all that.  Then he says to me, 'So I guess now if I notice you're getting a little pudgy it's ok for me to point it out and say you're doing a good job growing that baby!'  HA!  Priceless.  Gotta love him.

So that's how we spilled the beans.  How did you do it?  Even if you don't have kids yet, have you come up with any ideas?