How I told everyone...

Okay.

So I'm now 14 weeks pregnant. Can I just say that hiding it was getting fairly hard to do?!

I popped out super early...and we aren't sure why.

It may have something to do with the fact that my body was preparing for 2 babies...and now it only has one? Or maybe this baby is going to be a giant? ...who knows.

My immediate family (mom, dad, and brothers/sister in law) had been UBER involved in our fertility journey. They knew all my medications...how often I was taking them...when we had our doctors appointments...and when we would get our results from our doctors. I knew that hiding the pregnancy from them would be next to impossible. Plus, I wanted to talk to my mom if I had any questions.

You all know that I didn't find out on the day I was supposed to and it DROVE.ME.CRAZY. However, I almost think it drove my mom and brother Jeff crazier. Almost.

The next morning when I got the news, (yay!), the luggage we bought for Joe's mission got delivered to our house. So i got a picture frame and wrote, "Reserved for a picture of your future niece or nephew.... Surprise!" I put that in the smallest piece of luggage and nested them all inside one another. We took it over to my parents house that night and the hope was to have Joe open all the sets of luggage to "make sure the zippers worked"...well...its me and my life never goes as planned :)

My dad was helping and talking to someone about their car outside, my mom was trying to leave to go to a relief society event, Jeff was helping get his daughter in her highchair...the only one watching Joe was my SIL. Bless her. Joe read the picture frame, but didn't get it. Melanie squeaked and said "you are?!?!" and started hugging me. My mom finally looked up, Joe read the picture frame again and my mom burst into tears and ran over sobbing and hugging us. My dad even somehow made it in and was grinning from ear to ear. :)

We decided to wait until after the first trimester...just to be as safe as we could be. We knew that the percentage of risk of miscarriage dropped dramatically after the first trimester. However, we both had to tell our bosses and subsequently our co-workers found out. Jace and I had to tell our bosses to get the time off for ultrasounds and doctor's appointments that we needed. Since I started showing so early, my co-workers figured it out pretty quick.

When we finally reached 13 weeks--hello 2nd trimester!--we were excited to start telling people (jace's family especially), but my grandparents were flying in a couple of days later to be here for my brother's mission farewell. I decided that I'd waited 13 weeks...what was 2 more days so I could tell them in person?

I had bought a shirt that said "Coming this Spring" across the middle and wore it under a cardigan that I had buttoned up. I went to my parents house to see them, and my grandpa apparently looked at me and thought "wow she sure looks pregnant"...but graciously didn't say anything. I finally said I have exciting news and showed them my shirt and they were very happy!!! My grandparents were actually very touched that we waited to tell them in person.

After Jace got home that night, I said okay--lets go see your family! (he didn't want to...he was so tired from work) But we went. We tried his brother Josh and his wife first...because I flat out lied to her about being pregnant and have been feeling guilty for about 12 weeks. They weren't home! Jace's other brother and his family were out of town :(, so then we were off to see his parents. I was still wearing my shirt and cardigan, but this time I had a few pictures of Jace and I from our family pictures in Sept for her to "choose from" to update her wall. The last 2 pictures are of us holding a sonogram. One is further away and the last picture is a close up of our then 8 week old baby. While they were looking at the pictures, I had taken my cardigan off. When my mother in law was looking at the far away picture she said, "What is that you're holding?"...while my father in law looked at the last picture. When they realized what it was, I jumped off the couch and showed them my shirt. My mother in law bounded over to me crying, and my father in law got off the couch and embraced his son. It was very sweet and tender. My father in law immediately called his parents and told them the good news. We stayed and told them how far along I was (I'm just 5 weeks behind Jace's sister Jennifer) and everything I had been going through so far with the pregnancy. Jace was so tired that we didn't stay very long and went home. He wanted to tell his cousin, but I figured we'd at least text his siblings first. So i sent out a text to all of them, all of my cousins, and friends. I also hurry and hopped on over to this blog and finally was able to post that post that had been written for about 7 weeks...and linked it to Facebook. After about another hour, we decided to go to bed...we had just settled in when our doorbell rang.

Weird.

We opened the door and it was Josh and Jamie!!! They were too excited and couldn't wait to come see us. :) They even bought baby its first gift!! A super soft and gender neutral blanket and rattle :) They hung out for about an hour and we discussed the pregnancy, how we kept it a secret (avoidance and big t-shirts), and how happy they were for us.

All in all...it was everything we hoped for. We had so many people who were wanting this for us almost as bad as ourselves...so it was so nice to tell them that we finally had this miracle occur.