It's been a few days since I have had a chance to write. We have had services late every night at church, my dad came last night to stay with us and then tomorrow we leave for a super quick trip to Dallas to take one of our youth to college, and I worked some at my part time job, all this makes the pregnant lady very tired! So thankful that I am only working 10-15 hours a week!
So back to the stories of telling our families. I forgot to include the story of how I told my little sister. My sister and I have been very close for the last 10 years or so and I don't get to spend much time with her when I am home because she lives in Alabama and has a big girl job! We had previously arranged to meet for lunch half way in between while Joey and I were home for our little anniversary trip. My dad was so cute, he called me while he was on his vacation to tell me he had been thinking about it and thought I needed to tell Christy in the parking lot of the restaurant because she might squeal! Because I did not expect to be pregnant, I had just purchased a whole box of tampons. I put them in a gift bag with a note on them that said, "I won't be needing these for at least the next 9 months so I thought you could use them....you are going to be an aunt!!!!!!!!!" I did give her the gift in the parking lot and sure enough she did squeal very loudly and then she started crying and hugging me. Ryan (her boyfriend) looked at her kind of strangely and then joined in the celebration when he heard the news. It was so a great moment and so fun to be able to share in person.
We had already planned that we would come back to Louisiana from our trip on Father's Day. Joey's family was getting together that evening and we knew it would be the perfect time to tell everyone because we wanted to do it all together anyway. We arrived a little later than planned and everyone had already finished eating. We had our plan in place for telling them and were waiting for the right moment. We were both so nervous we thought we were going to throw up! Not long after we got there my father-in-law walked out the front door and was gone for almost an hour! I kept anxiously looking at the front door waiting for him to come back. Then when he did finally come back in, Joey's grandpa walked out the back door! When he came back in they decided to do desserts. I thought we would burst from keeping the secret any longer. It had already been two weeks and we were around them almost everyday during that time and didn't tell them.
Finally I looked at Joey in desperation and he asked if the cards had been opened yet and got up to get all the cards for his dad to read. Joey put our card on the bottom. No one was paying much attention because Mr. Leonard was reading his cards to himself. Finally he got to our card and we were on the edge of our seats. See earlier in the week Joey had asked Mr. Leonard what he wanted for Father's Day and his reply was "oh a couple of grandkids running around." So we made a card that on the front of it said. "Dad, we wanted to get you something really special for Father's Day and so we thought long and hard about it and finally decided to get you what you really wanted...(on the inside we had taped an apple seed) this is an appleseed and is the approximate size of your grandchild that is growing in Tiny's (Joey's nickname for me!) belly happy Father's/Grandfather's Day!" Mr. Leonard read the card and then quietly asked if we were serious and if anyone else knew. So at that point people started looking over at him. We told him to read the card out loud. When he got to the end everyone started screaming and shouting and jumping up and hugging us and crying. So many were exclaiming, "I've been praying." We celebrated with them and showed the pictures of the ultrasound. After things calmed down a bit Mr. Leonard asked my brother -in-law if he would lead the family in prayer of thanksgiving for the child and for the pregnancy. It was such a precious moment!
We did have to ask them all not to say anything to anyone because there were still family and friends we had not told and didn't want things to get out on facebook. Plus we wanted to tell our church family ourselves. I really wasn't ready to tell people just yet, because it was still so early in the pregnancy, but I knew they wouldn't be able to keep the secret for long!
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