More Surprises

When we pulled it together we decided the surprise was so much fun we needed to surprise the rest of our family. My whole family thought my appointment was going to be on Wednesday because it was originally supposed to be. I moved it to Tuesday because it was better for me, but we didn’t tell anyone so we could at least have a day to process it all before people started asking. We realized this gave us the opportunity to surprise everyone so we capitalized on it.

We hurried over to my parents house, who were both still at work. We put up a baby banner and brought the balloons. I had also bought two sets of feety pajamas, one pink and one blue that said “I love my Grandma” and “I’m on Grandpa’s team”. We set everything up and waited for Mom to get home. While we waited on her we covertly called our family to ask if they wanted to go out to eat with us. The nerves and the waiting had gotten to us, and we needed to get away and not think about it, we told them. Mom was running late, so I conjured up a reason I could have stopped by her house and called her. She was just down the street.

We got into our places and as soon as she came it we each held up the pajamas and yelled that we were pregnant. The look on her face was priceless, and we all cried a little. She was so surprised and I loved it.

We were going to wait for my Dad, but she called and he was working late. We had to get to the restaurant so she told him to meet her there. When we got to the restaurant the whole family was in the parking lot. They saw the balloons so we went ahead and told everyone. Everyone except Dad.

When we all got into the restaurant, we made a deal with the waiter. He was going to take the balloons to the back and when Dad got there he would bring them out. So everyone waited anxiously for Dad to come in. He came in about ten minutes later and the waiter brought out the pink and blue balloons and handed them to him. He was surprised too and we all cried.

You would think after all the surprises we would have been surprised out, but we still had two very important people to tell. Don’s boys are 18 and 21, and we really had no clue about how they would take the news. We chose not to tell them about IVF after we told them about Don’s surgery and Don’s ex-wife told them it would never be possible for us to conceive. We just thought it would be easier, especially if it did not work.

I was more nervous about how they would take it than Don was. I just thought how upsetting it would be if they really didn’t care or even were upset about it. I hoped that they would look at our child as a true brother or sister and want to be part of their lives. But with teenagers, you never really know.

We invited them over for an early Easter cookout. I thought it would be a good idea to get them Easter baskets and hide something in them. So I went a little overboard and had t-shirts made for them. Justin was the oldest so I got him a plain black shirt with Big Brother written on it. The word “big” was crossed out and “biggest” was wrote above it. Jordan’s shirt had “Little Brother” written on it with the word “Little” crossed out and “Big” wrote above it. Then we got a little white onesie with “Baby Brother? (or Sister, or Both!) “ written in the middle of it. We stuffed the t-shirts in the middle of their Easter baskets. When they got there, I couldn’t wait and we handed them their Easter baskets. They both pulled the t-shirts out at the same time. They read them and sat in silence. They didn’t get it at first. Then Don held up the baby onesie and it took a minute and they both looked at me and then at my stomach. They were actually pleasantly surprised. They asked questions, and thought of names all through dinner. They both want a little sister. It warmed my heart that they seemed happy about it.