I convinced him to wait until Valentines Day (after the first midwife appointment) to share the news with our families. Nathan crafted some valentines day cards and we made special appointments with each family member to deliver them. I was sure that everyone would suspect something when we asked if we could come over to "deliver a valentine," but some family members were still surprised. Sister Emily cried, Nathan's mom straight up screamed out loud. There were some good reactions. :) Here's what the Valentines Cards looked like:
And then I procrastinated telling my boss at SLCC, my boss at the U prep division, my private students, my music 1010 students, my graduate committee... all because I wanted to have a plan for each of those corners of my life before I jumped in with a "hey guess what... I'm pregnant." And I didn't feel like we could really make a facebook announcement without telling those important people first.
I had to tell John, my private cello teacher- because I had to cancel a lesson one awful day because I felt too barfy to get up off of the couch. And even if I had gone to that lesson, I had felt too barfy that entire week to practice. So he had to know. I accidentally told one of my dear sweet music 1010 students ( a non-traditional grandma-aged student who caught me in a particularly emotional moment and asked me if I was ok... no I'm not ok, I'm pregnant!) And I guess I told a few other people here and there- a cute pregnant friend-of-a-friend at a birthday party who commiserated with me about all-day-morning-sickness; a previous professor/colleague/friend at SLCC whom I thought might have advice for me about how to proceed with graduation from the U without finishing this semester's classes on time; a cello friend and fellow federation judge when asking her advice about teaching at home with a newborn- you know, those sort of situations. And once I had all of my plans made, I fretted for a while (which is what I do) and then sat down one morning and wrote a whole "to-do list" of emails to important people- bosses, students, graduation committee members, head of music graduate studies at the U- and then I felt like a huge weight was lifted off of my shoulders!
And obviously so did Nathan, because it was only the next day that he was sick of waiting for me to make a facebook announcement, and took matters into his own hands. What I WANTED to do was wait until we knew if it is a boy or a girl baby (which will happen on May 6th), write a blog post about it, and then post a link on facebook to the blog post. I felt like that would have killed 2 birds with one stone, and people wouldn't have to put up with so many "be excited for us" posts on various sources of social media. But alas. Now people will have to look at belly pictures, baby shoes with our grown up shoes pictures, gender announcements, and what ever else we post about it, I guess.
When Nathan posted the pictures, we got some comments back about people being upset that we didn't tell them earlier. And for that, I apologize. I'm not one who likes to intentionally draw attention to myself. And it's awkward to try to elicit excitement. And for a while there when I was feeling pretty gross constantly, and hadn't figured out how we were going to do life with an extra dependent human, and was basically overwhelmed with the news myself, I didn't feel like I was ready to share it. Case and point: back on January 24 when I took the initial pee test at home, I sent Nathan a picture test of the results with the caption "This is not a joke" and waited for his response. He wanted me to come to the hospital where he works and take a more official pee test there to be sure, and so I did. When the second test results came back positive again, the nurse came out to tell me, and she was SO EXCITED for me, and I felt- I don't know- kind of lost in a million thoughts. And I think that the nurse thought I was upset because I wasn't all smiles and bouncing up and down hugging strangers. And I wanted to wait until I had sorted through at least most of those millions of thoughts before I disappointed anyone with my lackluster reaction again.
But now I'm definitely excited. We have some of the details of how the future will work, which I'm sure won't even go according to our tentative plans, but the fact that we have a plan makes me feel a thousand times better already. It's fun and crazy and exciting to think that I'm growing an actual human inside of me. And it's starting to feel more real the more pregnant my belly is looking, and as I start to feel (what I think might be) a baby kickin' around in there. I'm going to be a MOM, which makes me feel more humble than possibly anything else ever has, and that is pretty exciting!
Baby Pinecone (thanks for the nickname, sweet niece Caroline!) will be making his or her world debut in approximately 5 short months! Bring on the summer and see ya in September!