How I Found Out // Telling Our Family!

{my MIL/FIL}

Hands down, one of the best and most fun parts about being pregnant is telling everyone! Since this is our first baby, we knew we wanted to tell everyone in person and being that most of our immediate family lives so close to us, it was easy to do and more meaningful this way. Not to mention, fun. I wish my job was just to surprise people with pregnancies on a daily basis. Wouldn't that be awesome? People love babies! (except you know, with not all my own pregnancies of course, yikes!)

Let's begin with how I found out...

I'm usually pretty sharp and on my game, so I like to think. Billy likes to joke with me that he can't get anything by me because I'm already one step ahead of him. Well, those days are long gone (actually, now I'm back to normal..phew). But no lie, one of the first signs that got me to thinking that I might be pregnant was how clumsy and darn forgetful I was the first few weeks. For instance, this one time I paid for my gas and left before even pumping it, and didn't realize until two hours later. Or how about the time (meaning multiple times) I've tried doing a task at work and somehow end up in the refrigerator staring blank inside saying to myself, "what was I doing again?! I did NOT mean to end up here!" Pregnancy brain is a real thing.

Anyways, I always had this thought in my head that it would take me forever to get pregnant. I don't know if it was because I was on birth control for so long (I've been off it though for over a year now), and I figured that it would mess me up somehow or what, but I was convinced. Billy, on the other hand, was convinced it would take one time. Wrong (both of us). I'm not going to get into this too much but my entire life I had regular, right on time, easy periods. Then, of course, when we decided to start trying, I started having irregular periods and terrible mid-cycle bleeding. It was also during these months that people were asking me more often about when we were going to have kids...it was disappointing and made me sad. I got really down on myself and became way more sensitive about asking others that very same question because the truth is (as much as people like to say otherwise) you just never know if a couple has been trying, and is having problems. You won't hear me ask any of my friends this question due to this, unless they come out and talk to me about it first.

Eventually, my period decided to regulate itself out shortly after and that month is the month we got pregnant. I knew literally right away that I was pregnant, and I even told my girlfriends that I didn't really need to take a pregnancy test because I was that sure. That first week I was making trips to the bathroom what felt like every hour, I started getting car sick, and my sleeping was off (these things only lasted those first couple days). Due to the happenings in the months prior, I was both so excited and shocked. The first few days I'm pretty sure I was in shock the entire time, wasn't thinking clearly, and started imagining my life as a Mommy!

 

How I told Billy...

Billy had an idea that I was pregnant because I mentioned to him that I thought I might be, but I still wanted to surprise him and tell him in a really special way.

I researched ideas on Pinterest and found the one I wanted to do. One night after work, I made him a "baby themed dinner" with baby back ribs, baby carrots, and baby cherry pies for dessert, thinking he would totally catch on to that. Turns out, he was so excited to be having baby back ribs on our new grill that he didn't, but luckily I had plan B. ha. I put together a gift box full of "Daddy" gifts to give to him after dessert...a coffee mug (from Hallmark), onesie (Gap), a book, and of course my positive pregnancy test sitting right on top! He obviously knew right away at that point and we spent the whole night celebrating, talking about what we thought our baby would look like, and laughing about the fact that he didn't catch on to the baby themed dinner.

How we told our family...
 (Baby K is the first grand baby for my Dad and also on Billy's side!)

There was never a question in my mind as to who we would tell first, I have always known I wanted my Mom to be the first to know.

Shortly after I found out I was pregnant along came Mother's Day (could have not been better timing!), so that morning me and Billy went to her grave with baby's breath in hand, a grandma/grandpa onesie, and told her the news. Or so I thought I was going to...

I will NEVER forget this moment. I was so excited and happy the whole car ride to go tell her, and then right as I was walking to her grave, it hit me and I started sobbing. In that moment, I had to stop walking and just broke down hard because it hit me that she isn't physically here with me, and that I couldn't hug her or see her reaction. All I wanted was to be able to see her gorgeous smile one more time and see how excited she was for us. I was a complete and utter mess, but Billy (bless his heart) pretty much took over and said the sweetest speech in the world to my Mom. I'm so lucky for this man, you have no idea. He is so good to me and it goes down as one of the most special moments in my life (and also makes the dream that I mentioned yesterday with her in it-that much cooler.)

Next up, was my parents, also on Mothers Day's. I was actually pretty nervous to tell them for some odd reason, but in a good I've-been-waiting-for-this-moment kinda way. Billy was also nervous and he will probably kill me for sharing this, but he turned to me that day and goes "now your Dad is going to know that I...for sure...like, have sex with his daughter" LOL, no shit babe! I was dying! (sorry Billy-I'm not skipping any details here. Hahahaha I am still dying...)

So, we told them to come over for a cookout and when they showed up, I had a little sign out front telling them to come around the side of the house to the backyard. When they came around the corner, where our big main tree is next to our deck we had a custom onesie (from here) hanging in the tree right in sight. It was priceless! My Dad immediately goes "OHH!!", my step mom started laughing and smiling, and of course we talked all about it over dinner.

 

Since Billy's parents live in Cleveland, we knew the next time we would be with them was Memorial Day weekend at the lake and it was perfect timing to tell them because pretty much the whole family was going to be there for the holiday, including Billy's grandma who doesn't get up there much anymore! However, everyone was showing up at different times so we ended up telling many of them at separate times.

Billy's brother was first, and we knew we wanted to tell him with Rocky wearing a big brother shirt (from here!) When we showed up to the cottage, Rocky ran in with it on and he noticed right away! It was hilarious. Billy's parents came up later (his sister was supposed to be with them, but couldn't come until later on so I actually don't have any pictures of telling her unfortunately) and we literally couldn't wait a minute to tell them...it was like we had to do it right away!

That Friday we actually had the day off and had our very first ultrasound, so I found a really cute Grandparents picture frame with a poem and a spot for the ultrasound picture on it (from Hallmark) to give them. Since it was in between Mother's Day and Father's Day, we told them we had a gift for the both of them to celebrate both holidays. :)

After the whole family got to the cottage and found out the news, Billy's sweet Grandma gave us an adorable toast and it was so nice to be able to have much of his family there that weekend to celebrate with us!

 

 

Need a good cover to hide your pregnancy when you aren't ready to tell family or friends quite yet?! Just one or two days after "thinking" I was pregnant, we did go to Cleveland to visit Billy's family but we knew we weren't going to say anything, so to hide it we bought ginger ale plastic bottles from the gas station and the plan was whenever we were out to dinner (Billy's family are big drinkers so they would catch on/ask us if I didn't order a drink!) I would take my beer bottle to the bathroom and fill it up with the ginger ale. This plan worked like a CHARM!! (I really only had to do it twice over the whole weekend so it's not like it was crazy inconvenient. We have shared some good laughs with them about this now looking back because they had no idea...)

How I told my girls... 

Oh my goodness, this was so fun.

Chalkboard sign that reads "Only the best sisters get promoted to AUNTS! Baby Krysh due Jan. 2015" + balloons + show up at their house and tell them to come outside = perfection in the form of dropping baby news! (you can see how I did it in the video below!)

For some of my other girlfriends, we were getting together for a girls/wine night so after all the girls showed up (and were pouring their wine), I told them I had to run out to my car to get a bottle of wine. On the wine bottle, I placed this tag and well, their reactions were priceless (also in the video.)

Here's a quick video I put together of some of our friends and families reactions!
Please note: We told Billy's brother Kevin before we got to the bar, but I messed up that video so this one of him screaming, "I'm gonna be an Uncle" to random people is what made the cut. ;)

....again, you deserve a medal if you made it this far.