First Reactions to Z Baby News

One of the most fun parts of this whole pregnancy thing, up to this point anyway, has been sharing the news . . . and all the reactions we've gotten.

I was 8 weeks along when my parents and grandparents were here. It was earlier than we really wanted to be sharing the news, but they were going to be the only family we would get to tell face-to-face, and not to mention the red flags that were going to be thrown up when I pass on the wine, don't have beer with my steak at our favorite "beef and beer joint", and never once drink a Diet Coke over the course of two weeks. Ordering water or juice with every meal was sure to trigger some thoughts in someone's mind. So anyway, we racked our brains for the 4 weeks preceding their visit trying to decide how to tell them. I wanted it to be extra special since this was going to be the first grandchild and great-grandchild in my family!

Finally, we figured out how to do it. Under the pretense of taking them all out for a "birthday supper" (since it was a day after Mom's birthday and we would be missing Dad's in September, Grandma's in October, and Grandad's in November), we took them out along with two wrapped gifts - one for each couple - to a nice churrascaria in Foz do Iguaçu. After the meal, we told them that since we had missed Mother's Day and Father's Day with them this year, we had a little gift for that too.


(There was a matching gift for Grandma and Grandad as well.)

After pulling back the tissue paper and seeing the bib and baby spoons, Dad responded with an exasperated sounding "What's this?!?" (Which I fully believe was in his best attempt to hide the "OMG you're pregnant!" squeal that always escapes from me when I learn someone is prego. Granted, I've never heard my father squeal, but I'm pretty sure he really wanted to at this moment. He was all grins.)


Lots of smiles, laughs, "Congratulations", hugs, and kisses followed from the grandparents and great grandparents-to-be . . . along with the inevitable 20-questions game, led by non other than the person who I think invented that game, Grandma. ;)

Later on that night as we were all heading towards our rooms, Mom told Eric and me to "behave yourselves." (Because you're never too old for your mom to tell you things like that.) Eric paused one second and then said, "Well, don't you think it's a little late for that now?" Everyone got a good laugh. (Except maybe Dad, who I'm pretty sure had his hands over his ears repeating to himself, "The stork brought the baby, the stork brought the baby, the stork . . .")

Some of the most notable first responses we encountered were:

From my baby brother, Nathan: (very casually, but unable to hide the obvious"smile" in his voice) "Pregnant, huh?" Followed by a squeal in the background from his girlfriend, Megan. (When I asked what he was up to, he told me he and Megan were eating at a Mexican restaurant. Since he knows how much I miss Mexican food here, I told him it sure wasn't nice to brag about such things to a pregnant woman. I thought I would slip it right past him, but he caught it!)

From my little brother, Justin: (in a most excited tone) "WHY!?! . . . I mean, not why, I mean, WHAT!?! . . . no, I mean um, that's awesome! I mean, wow! That was the last thing I was expecting you to say right now." (He asked what we had been up to and I told him we had been busy making him a "Tio" - Portuguese for Uncle - come this April. He speaks Portuguese, but I had to repeat myself three times before he got it.)

From my older brother, Travis: (also in a most excited tone) "WHAT!?! You're sh*%ing me! Oh, wait, uh, congratulations!" (This is so totally Travis, but in his defense I did totally catch him off guard. He asked how we had been doing. I responded with simply, "Pregnant." It took about 5 seconds before he even said anything after that.)

From Eric's Grandpa as Eric tried for several minutes to hint around to it: "Are you trying to tell me something? Eric: "Well Gramps, I'm trying here, but you're making it awfully hard on me!" (Gramps very excited now) "Well now, son, you know you got to hit me over the head with a 2 x 4!"

Eric's Mom was pretty funny too. We got his parents and youngest sister, Kelly, to all get on Skype and turn on the webcam so we could see them. After inquiring into whether or not they were excited to be grandparents for a third time (Eric's older sister, Tanya, is due any day now with her third), his Mom said something along the lines of 'yeah, and people always ask me about you and Emily and I always tell them you've got a couple years yet . . .' Eric then went on to ask, "Well, by April do you think you'll be ready for Number 4?"

His Dad immediately was grinning and congratulating us. Kelly said something along the lines of, "Are you serious?", and his Mom's response was "What? What are you talking about?" Eric went on to say how we had our first ultrasound and things looked good and we were due April 11. Then his Mom asked, (obviously still in shock) "What? What do you mean?" Eric laughed and said, "Hey, I think you two are going to have to explain it to her!" Then she came up close to the camera and asked, "Wait, really? You're pregnant?" Eric laughed again and said, "Well, not me exactly, but Emily is." She was really excited for us, but I think it took 12 or 24 hours for the shock of it to wear off. (Well, so I think - the shock has worn off now, right Nena?)