How we told the family

We let the cat out of the bag pretty much immediately with Brian's parents and Ben, because, honestly, I couldn't fake feeling peachy when they were visiting at the holidays! We surprised his mom with the news as an early birthday gift to her, with a book (Three Little Kittens) that she can read to her grandchild some day in the not-too-distant future!  There were happy tears, hugs, and smiles all around!

 I was cautiously optimistic that the pregnancy would continue as it was supposed to, but I wasn't keen on spreading the word to anyone else until I felt a bit better about it, and had a few MD appts under my belt.  I also knew I wanted to do something special to surprise my parents as well as my grandfather and aunt Cathy.  I suppose I could have just called them and blurted it out, but I really wanted to come up with something more creative since we could not tell them in person.  We ended up creating Shutterfly calendars for them!  My mom, my dad and step-mom, and my aunt Cathy had all come out to visit me in Germany while Brian was deployed last year.  I made each of them calendars (starting in February) with pictures from their visits representing each month.

For the month of August, there were pink and blue teddy bears on August 22nd (my due date) and this was the photo we used.

Brian's parents took this picture when they were visiting, and I was feeling pretty nasty, so please excuse the PJ pants and frumpy look!

As expected, my family was overjoyed!  I was able to be on the phone with each of them as they flipped through their calendars for the 1st time, and it was so much fun to hear their excitement when they got to August!  Telling them and hearing their reactions has been one of my very favorite parts of this pregnancy so far!