The Telling Of It All

We went upstate and told Chicken's parents and other family members this past weekend.

I thought about all kinds of different ways to tell them--give them a Tshirt, make them an expensive photo book, etc.

In the end, I found the frugal idea of the perfect $2.49 card and some photo copies worked out best.

As luck would have it, Chicken's mom and step dad were coming to the town where Chicken's dad and partner live in order to attend a friend's art gallery opening.

We suggested that we all have dinner together and they agreed. It was stepdad's birthday and on a lovely summer evening over cocktails (the parents, not us) on the patio, as I handed him his birthday card, I said "I didn't want the rest of you to feel left out, so I got you cards, too."

The mom has been suspicious for quite some time, so she immediately got it and squealed with delight. The dad seemed perplexed and confused. The dad's partner (who is also a twin) expressed support and happiness as did the step dad. Of course no one had bothered to actually READ the card or look carefully at the photos so no one figured out we were having twins! That part is always fun.

All around, it was good. But we were surprised that the dad didn't seem that happy.

However, he finally admitted that he was really confused by the card. Get this: somehow by looking at the photos and seeing the word "Future" he thought we were going to take a trip to the moon. Yeah...Oh boy.

People don't read cards!!!

The next morning after he had asked a ton of questions about the procedure, he was feeling much better and happier. I think he was really overwhelmed as he was not suspicious at all whereas the mother was just kinda 'waiting' for us to break the news.

I didn't know this, but when she'd been asking Chicken what was going on, instead of her giving a great canned answer like "oh, you know, we'll still trying", Chicken said "well, even if we knew something we wouldn't tell anyone for 3 months."

Hellll-oooo?? Who says something like that while trying to keep a secret?? Oh Chicken. I love her, but she is not a good little fibber that is for sure.

I'd asked Chicken to make sure to tell her mother not to tell ANYONE until we had a chance to give out the news ourselves, but Chicken forgot and by the next morning her mother had told all family members. This upset me as we were seeing some of those family member the very next day and we'd planned to tell them in person ourselves.

I would never tell news like that if the other person hadn't told me I could--but that's not the way this family works. There are no secrets and everyone is a giant blabbermouth.

It took some of the excitement out of the telling, but her mother was very indignant and unapologetic about it, even when confronted. Sigh. It was unfortunate.

They pressed on with finding out about the sex and the names, but I let them know in no uncertain terms they will find out the sex and the names the same day we do--the day they are born! We are having babies, that's all we know!

The last thing I want to deal with is family drama on the naming and oh! there would be opinions!!

So here we are. 13 weeks and we've told everyone. I wish I felt happier about it all, but instead I just feel a little sad it didn't all go as I thought it would. After nine years in this family you'd think I'd be used to this.

Sigh.