My niece and her 7 month old son have arrived from interstate yesterday to visit for a week, so today we had a big family BBQ.  Everyone was there except one niece and my Mum.

 

After I went home from my sisters place last night, I started to contemplate telling the family.  I found a great poem online to use to tell Mum, and I decided to buy Anne Geddes cards for each of them and write in the cards… “Just when you thought that I’d never make you an Aunty… SURPRISE!  But shhhh it’s a secret”.

 

I discussed my thoughts with my sister who has known all along what was happening when I arrived at her house, and told her that it was too hard to hide the changes in my personality from the family – going from drinking at EVERY social function, to not drinking at all, was going to be a hard ask to convince the family, and I certainly wanted to tell them on my terms, before anyone guessed … or even joked about it to me.

 

And just as I thought, as soon as my step-niece arrived, she was offering me alcohol haha.  I definitely had to bite the bullet and tell my sisters, so at the first opportunity, I gathered all three of them in the bedroom and handed them the cards.  My eldest sister was shocked – in a happy way and asked me if I was pregnant?  I admitted to them that I had been going through the process for quite a while now, and that my second eldest sister and her husband were aware of what was going on.  After a lot of hugs and kisses and congratulations, I then dropped the further bombshell that it could be twins!  My eldest sister nearly fell over haha.

 

We then discussed telling the rest of the family (kids and all), as there were another 14 people in the house that still had no clue as to what was going on.  I didn’t fancy explaining everything to the kids given that I was only 4 weeks along, and it is still very early days and anything could happen.  My eldest sister said that I should go out there and shout it from the rooftops – “hey everyone, you’re going to have another cousin” haha and that this is something in life that children are very resilient about. 

 

My niece was holding her son, so I took him out of her arms.  She picked up her camera to take a pic, and I asked her if she thought the look suited me because I was planning on having one of my own in June.  She didn’t believe me… just said, “yeah, whatever” a few times and I kept having to repeat myself haha.  My step-niece twigged to the fact before my niece did… but they both came over and gave me a hug and a kiss and congratulated me.  And the kids were all asking questions and trying to follow the adult conversation.  My step-nephew’s girlfriend was there, and she gave me a hug and a kiss and then headed outside to tell him.

 

Then my brother in law and nephew came inside so I filled them in on what was happening, and my step-nephew came inside, gave me a kiss, and asked me how far along I was, and promptly announced that his girlfriend was 6 weeks along haha which of course was a joke, but very funny.

 

Overall, everyone had lots of questions and wanted to know why I had decided this, and how I came to the decisions, and what it all meant and what was going to happen, and overall, it was fantastic to get it all over and done with in one day. 

 

The kids started getting a bit more in tune over the course of the day with more conversations going on about babies, and I kept expecting the inevitable question to come up about me not having a partner.  Then after lunch, my 9-year-old nephew found out that I was pregnant, and promptly announce that it couldn’t be true.  When I asked him why, he kept saying that he didn’t believe it, and that I wasn’t pregnant.  His mum kept asking him too, because we both thought that the question of having no partner was about to come up, when he finally admitted that I couldn’t possibly be pregnant because I was too skinny!  Oh, how I loved him for that, the response was priceless.

 

As apprehensive as I was about telling everyone my news, it was also great to know that the whole family is now aware of what is happening, and I can openly ask for advice and talk about my experiences.

 

Later in the afternoon, I printed out this diary and it got passed around so I could share the details of my journey to date with everyone.  I’m so glad I started this diary!

 

The only person that I haven’t told yet is my Mum… but I am planning on waiting until after my scan on 23 October 2008 before I tell her.