sisters in law and show and tells

I’ve been thinking about when I will tell people about this pregnancy. I suppose I could call it a baby…but I just called it a pregnancy instead so, hmm. No need to overly psychoanalyze that one. Anyway, I’m definitely closed until I see the heartbeat, and that’s not for a god forsaken 12 more days (hopefully!). Parents and brothers can find out then. Last time we told people around 11 weeks after we had seen the first pictures; it was too exciting to hold in! This time, I’m torn between sharing early so we can all be happy while it lasts and keeping it completely secret until someone just calls me out on wearing maternity pants so I don’t have to talk about it. Hubby wants to tell his boss ASAP to make him feel better about having his own baby, but I’m still going to need to be convinced on that one. I don’t see why he can’t wait a while like everybody else, and I don’t think we need to worry about making him feel any better. (Hubby’s so much nicer than I am). Boss’s already sending us ultrasound photos (no joke) and I don’t need him any more shary-shary than that.

Mostly I figure I don’t need to tell people until they’re going to find out just by looking at me. And that’s how sister-in-law (SIL) found out yesterday. Cripes, I’m not even 6 weeks “along!”I’m not sure if she was just really curious and pushed the subject or if she actually thought I was pregnant but she certainly weasled it out of me. Here’s how it went: SIL is two years older than me and dying to have a baby. Problem is, she’s in school and has to convince her husband. With graduation a mere 6 months away she’s got her eyes on the prize and literally talks about making babies all the time. Not in front of the boys, just with me. And, she admitted, with one other friend. She wants to try some crazy natural family planning method, which the

other friend uses, but I am trying to convince her to stay on birth control because there’s just no telling that one little slip won’t make a baby. I don’t think she would be too sad about an accident, but that’s not the point. The point is she started asking me about a thermometer in the bathroom and if I was using it for basal body temperature taking, which has to do with charting ovulation, etc., etc. Then she talked about missing Wyatt for Christmas, her natural-family-planning friend’s miscarriage, how she can’t wait to make a baby, and on and on about charting fertility, blah, blah, blah. I pretty much blacked out wiping the counters down so many times out of nervousness. I realized after I washed my hands the sixth time that my face felt beet red and I couldn’t turn around without telling her the truth. So I did. And I got the biggest hug ever and some tears of happiness. She claims we had a sparkle in our eyes, but it was probably gas on my part. I just hope I don’t have to tell anyone else until we get some good news from that scientific wonder we call ultrasound.