We headed off to New Mexico today, to see my folks, and Keri and Sean, and the Albuquerque Balloon Fest. Mike and I went back and forth over whether to tell the family about the pregnancy this soon. Obviously, we wanted our parents to be the first to know. But it just seems so early! We had decided that the rule of thumb should be to only tell the people we would want to have supporting us if we have a miscarriage (God forbid!). And we didn't want to tell around DC until after my January raise kicks in. And to me, it was important to tell people in person, to the extent possible, because I wanted to see the looks on their faces. We had already decided to visit Tampa for Mom's birthday at the end of October, so I arranged to see my parents the following weekend. But we realized the secret would be hard to keep this weekend, especially since I was throwing up and had suddenly become a picky eater. My original vote had been to tell my parents in New Mexico, then tell Mike's when we went to Tampa a few weeks later, but Mike felt it was more important to tell them as close to simultaneously as possible, and I could see his point.
So, we called the Wasyliks from the airport on our way out of town. Mike sprung the news to his Mom just beautifully: "Oh, and by the way, what do you want your grandchild to call you??" We could hear Mom practically jumping up and down. As always, Dad was more reserved; his granchild is apparantly going to call him "Congratulations" if he has his way. It felt so good to share the secret.
We told my folks at dinner that night, over Mexican food. The topic of conversation turned to vacation time, and I asked my Mom if she had enough vacation to take a large hunk of June off. Why? Well, to come meet your grandchild! Keri's half of the table missed the big news at first; we had to repeat it. And explain to little Sean.
We swore them all to secrecy, though -- we wanted to tell Denny and Katie and my grandmother and the rest of the family ourselves.