The REVEAL
So as we did when I was pregnant with Isaac, we waited until 20 weeks to tell my family. We found out on my birthday, Friday, March 6th what we were expecting and pulled together the plan to reveal (okay, I was the mastermind here…Doug just wanted to blurt it out. I wanted a little more theatrics).
But first I’ll answer a question. You see, people always want to know why we wait. And I always want to know why people don’t! It’s definitely an exciting time when you’re expecting but it’s also an annoying time and a scary time. When you find out your pregnant you can’t help but always think “I hope everything is okay in there.” Did that nose spray I used when I was 4 weeks along hurt them? Did the plague cause irreparable damage to their developing hearts? Heck are they both still in there!?! Then I’ve had so many friends that have had miscarriages very early in their pregnancies and have to tell everyone that this baby wasn’t meant for this world. It’s not that it’s embarrassing, but more for me anyway, something I wouldn’t want to be questioned about. But I get it, a lot of people have to share that joy immediately and my decision to wait is by far in the minority…call me weird.
But then as soon as you tell people you are pregnant, comes the onslaught of wisdom. They immediately start telling you what you “should” and “shouldn’t” be doing. They polish their Google MD degrees and start spouting off their wisdom. You shouldn’t shovel snow…you shouldn’t drink tea…you should get rid of your pets…you should sit in front of the TV for the next 40 weeks and on and on and on. Meanwhile I just want to scream “You should mind your own business!” I know they mean well, but really, unless you catch me drinking hard liquor and smoking cigars when pregnant why not keep your opinions to yourself. (I don’t smoke or drink even when not pregnant so don’t worry).
But I digress from the fun of the reveal. So on March 6, we were at the doctor for 2.5 hours and had full anatomy scans done. It’s pretty neat in that they are able to see each baby’s heart, kidneys, bladder, lobes of the brain and major bones. They are also able to tell most of the time with some degree of certainty if they are girls or boys. Though I have heard of a number of cases where the new expecting parents were told one gender only to find at a later ultrasound that they were in fact expecting the opposite! I’ve also heard of twins turning into triplets, but after 2.5 hours with an ultrasound peaking in on my stomach, I’m fairly confident there are just 2.
So off I went to my parent’s house for my St. Patrick’s Day themed (at least in food) birthday party (and reveal party they didn’t know I had planned). For this party, I volunteered to make cupcakes to use up some ingredients I had that I didn’t know how long they would keep (how convenient right?). Doug and I spent time making ice cream cone cake pops for baby one and then little decorative cake balls for baby two. The inside of each would represent the gender of the baby. So a blue inside for boy and a pink inside for girl. And on the outside we put an M&M on the top so people could choose which gender they thought the baby was. Pink/purple for girl and blue/yellow for boy.
So right before it was time for “Happy Birthday” I had a sign stating that we were expecting. The family all cheered, everyone was surprised they were incredulous that I could keep it secret for so long and they were excited to take part in the guessing game. Everyone chose their cone and bit in. BABY ONE IS A BOY! They cheered, congratulated my dad on having a lot of trucks for baby one to play with along with my son and my sister also has a boy.
Then it was time for Happy Birthday. Everyone sang their best (and worst) and cheered and were still rejoicing in the news of the new baby. Then I hit them with round TWO. Sign two was held up “God Laughed, 3+2=5” and that’s when things really started to get fun. Shocked cries of OH MY GOSH, my aunt made a historical moment by remaining speechless, one uncle asked how this happened (I’ll let Doug answer that sometime) and then my grandmother after she finally understood the sign busts out with her own little secret. “Oh yes, my Grandma Martin had 3 or 4 sets of twins…I think 3, but maybe 4.” SAY WHAT??????? First, who the hell is this Grandma Martin I’ve never heard of? Second, twins are in my DNA and no one told me???? Apparently, Grandma Martin was quite prolific and had 13 live children. From memory, my grandmother doesn’t believe any of the twins made it, but Grandma Martin would have also had these children sometime in the 1800’s and lived in Czechoslovakia. You see, when we talked to the doctor and I told him there were no twins I was aware of in our family. So he attributed the twins to my age, liking to eat a lot of sweet potatoes (cultures that eat a lot of yams have a high incidence of twins), weight and random chance. So while I was getting over my own little surprise of not being the anomaly of the family everyone was rioting about the gender of the second baby.
Out pops cake pan two with all of the little cake balls. Everyone again picked their chosen gender and bit. ANOTHER BOY! Good thing I like the outdoors, reptiles and amphibians and playing sports, because it looks like we’ll have a lot of that in the future! There will also come a time where I should never have to mow the lawn, shovel snow, carry groceries or worry about them coming home pregnant. I will instead need to make sure they are raised to be polite and helpful gentlemen that treat others with respect and have amazing aim in the bathroom. It’s a good thing I don’t mind cooking because that’s going to be a lot of BOY to feed. I may also consider having a bathroom built with a urinal and me have a princess bathroom installed for my use only! Doug is thrilled with the prospect of all boys. He was hoping for one of each, but his second hope was for all boys. He was worried about having to keep eyes on two girls!
So let the BOY adventures begin!
