Breaking the news

I was only mildly flipping out about telling the family, as I knew they would all be very excited. It was more a question of exactly what to say. We decided to tell my mum and dad first and then tell my brother and sister once the kids had gone to bed. It went almost to plan.

My brother was already there when we arrived but fortunately he took the dogs out shortly after we got there so I told my mum to stop hoovering and my dad to stop grating a horse radish.
'How important is it?'
I considered this briefly and replied 'very'. Then I said I was pregnant and there were hugs all round. My dad congratulated my husband, which I found somewhat annoying, it's not just proof of masculinity and it's me who's got to grow the thing inside me!

I had initially planned to tell bro and sis pretty much as soon as her kids had gone to bed but she came back down in a foul mood so I thought we would all just play Absolute Balderdash for a while to cheer her up. Then they started smoking. I put up with one cigarette but as my unease and discomfort grew I realised I had to intercede.

'Umm, I didn't quite mean to tell you like this but can you stop smoking please because I'm pregnant.'

Not exactly the words I would have chosen, but hey. There were more hugs, and excitement, and offerings of advice and admonishings for not having said anything sooner.

Then there was more Absolute Balderdash.

Then as my sister and her husband got progressively more and more drunk, they hugged me more and more and kept whispering things to me and telling me to ignore their other half because they were drunk. V amusing.

There has been a lot of cheese already that I am not allowed to eat. I think this very unfair. But on the plus side, the whole pregnant thing has given me a free pass to go and have little naps when I'm tired, which is ace.

I'm back to work on Tuesday, though, and I don't intend to tell anyone there for a while yet so I almost definitely won't be allowed to vanish off and have a little sleep, which is a great shame.

Nor can I comfort myself with stinky cheese.