Someone Knew Before the 'Rents

My parents found out January 17.  Matt's family found out a bit earlier.  His family, his way and time of telling them.  I encouraged it.  Matt and I were a bit busy last holiday season and did not send out holiday gifts.  Everyone understood, especially when Matt told everyone by Skype on Christmas morning that I had not been feeling well, "especially in the morning." 

I am sure I am going to get some bad karma here, but someone did find out before Matt's family.  Just a few days before Christmas my friends came over to hang out and we exchanged gifts.  Our gathering place is our living room, which also serves as our dining room, so it was a bit difficult to get people to go into our "library," which is complete with a fireplace.  The library is the first room we enter upon coming in from the garage, but a room that guests may never enter if they come in through the front door, which everyone does.  Matt hung his handsome stocking by the fire, and while I knitted one for everyone else, I actually ran out of time to make one for me.  Sure, mine was lame, but the rest were unbelievably awesome.  It took a while for me to get one friend to check out our fireplace.  When she did, she found this.




Things got a bit worse when we exchanged gifts.  One of my close friends had a baby last November, so I had lots of questions for her and she figured things out pretty quickly.  Now the first friend was happy to know, but I believe she was taken a bit off guard when I opened my gifts and took out a onesie.  This piece of clothing based on the book "Name of the Wind" by New York Times bestselling author Patrick Rothfuss. Matt wanted one of these, but didn't want to pay for it.  He said if we bought everything that was cute, it would add up quickly.  I knew he wanted it and didn't want me to buy it, so I asked that friend who just had a baby if she had purchased me a Christmas gift yet.  She had not.  I happily held up my gift and heard, "She already knew?!"

My Parents and Their Egg

Before my husband and I had the initials EGG picked out, I had already scoped out a unique way to tell my parents Matt and I are expecting. In case you do not know, my husband and I are the last baby makers for both our families. Both of my sisters are done having kids, the youngest of the bunch being around 7 or 8 years old and I believe my husband has a nephew around the same age.  I will also add in the tidbit that when my parents found out Matt and I were getting married, they thought we were joking.  I needed a way to tell them the news without actually telling them.

I had scoped out a website and found the perfect way to let both my parents know at the same time, so not to give one an advantage of knowing over the other. The only problem is that I wanted to wait until I had an official due date from my doctor.  This is typically done at the first appointment which is at the eight week mark, or about the time of your second missed cycle.  This would have been the end of December and Matt and I wanted to schedule all of our appointments in 2014 for insurance purposes. This would have put the first appointment at the beginning of January, but Matt and I were heading out of town.  January 10th was the big day.  I got my due date of August 6th and set to work letting my parents in on our secret.

I found this on Etsy.  We only needed one and I was willing to pay a little extra to keep the contents a secret.  I asked the wonderful owner of Little Elephant Gifts if she would be able to ship the item directly to my parents house.  This would mean my parents would get a package addressed to them from someone they did not know in Oregon.  My hand writing or mark would not be found on the packaging.  To save a bit of time on this already long post, my parents received the package on Friday, January 17th (I tracked that little box online for the duration of its journey).  They found the little white box to be suspicious.  Who did they know that lived in Oregon?  No one.  Did they buy something and forget about it?  No.  Did someone buy them a Christmas gift and not tell the it was three weeks late?  No.  How did this person get their name and address?  And what on Earth was I that small box?  Dad stood on the other side of the kitchen while my mom bravely opened the box.  Inside was another box.  I could only imagine my parents anticipation building.   Mom opened the interior white box and found a quail egg resting inside a nest.  On the box lid were stamped instructions, "Crack Me."  She tried to be gentle, but ended up smashing the little egg to smithereens. Inside was a small piece of paper with a simple message, "Baby Glasheen Due 8/6/2014."

How Work Found Out

So begins a series of posts to tell the story of who found out, when they found out, and how.  The folks at work were among the last to find out.  They were permitted to know after my first trimester, which was early February.  I posted a sign on my door and waited.  Nothing.  I told the ladies in my department that I had a sign on my door and they should read it.  They were excited. 

The next step was to find a way to get more staff members to come to my office.  I made cinnamon rolls and sent out an all staff email.  This is 40 or so employees.  After a couple of hours of me making some serious progress of eating said sweets, a single coworker wandered to my office.  I told her she could have the roll after she read the sign on my door and I closed the door.

I told people I got a new desk in my office (which was true and it made a huge difference) and they should come look at it.  A few showed up and stood at the doorway.  I told coworkers the tour started with my door.  I closed my door and watched and waited for their reaction.  They would look at me through the window in my door.  I told them to look at my door.  They carefully and diligently examined the exterior of my door (how did they not see the sign?!).  I told them to look at the handle (which was close to the sign).  They would look at it, bend down close to it, go to adjacent door and compare the knobs...  "Read the sign," another coworker would say.  Geez... I work in a library, I know people don't read signs, but somehow I was still surprised.

Please Stop the Milestones...

This weekend I reached two unusual milestones. I suppose, perhaps, they are typical marks of pregnancy, they were just unexpected.  The first occurred when my husband brought in the mail.  I believe it was Friday, the weekend is somewhat hazy, but I have a firm thought as to why it was Friday.  My husband gave me a package.  It was a huge white plastic bag.  I knew what was inside it.  "Yay!  Compression socks!"  I did not say this phrase out loud, but I did have to check with my wonderful husband to clarify.  To make things worse, another package was delivered on Sunday.  Shall you dare guess the phrase I uttered that instantly makes me 30+ years older.  Let the good times roll, I've got a two pack coming in the mail.  I hope I don't wet myself in anticipation and excitement.

The second milestone came upon dressing on Sunday morning.  I put on a t-shirt and looked in the mirror to find a shirt with the tummy stretched taught.  It looked uncomfortable.  Looks are not important to me, but Matt is now at an understanding that he is not permitted to let me leave the house if I remotely look like I may appear on the People of Wal-Mart website.  That evening I was getting ready for bed and realized nearly all of my t-shirts are a size medium.  I am now wearing my husband's t-shirts to bed.  No word yet if this practice will continue on weekends, when I typically dress down and ditch the maternity gear that I sport for work. 

On the plus side, I am going to give you a great visual.  I used a chainsaw to cut a few trees down this weekend.  Yup, my husband has it rough, his wife is nearly six months pregnant and is cutting down trees and shrubs with dangerous yard equipment. 

Our baby is an EGG!

I don't mind saying it, my husband and I are "those" parents.  As we were brainstorming baby names we made sure to look at initials.  We both were amused with ECG and EGG and settled on EGG (I kept my last name because I wasn't ready to change it when I got married, and my loving husband was and still is okay with this decision).  Egg is a fun nickname for the baby.  Do you know the names?  Everett Grayson for a boy.  We got that one easy.  We later found out we needed a girl's name.  Well damn.  Matt searched high and low for names fitting both genders.  I was and am still fond of Emma, but Emma was number 5 on the list of most popular girls names for 2013.  "Do you want our baby to be one of five in a class?"  Of course not.  Eleanor Grace was discovered upon helping a lady with a print job at the library.  She told me her name and I said, "Eleanor.  That's a nice name.  You don't hear that anymore."  I went home and told my husband and we easily settled on Grace.  Grace may become more popular with an upcoming movie being released where one of the protagonists insists on calling the other by her first and middle names, Hazel Grace.  So there is the story of how our Egg got her name.

Baby's First?

No one calls to talk to Matt's 98 year old grandma.  Don't think we're bad family members, she simply cannot hear.  What we actually do is call her and yell at her.  I am not talking about raising your voice, this is more like the kind of yelling you do at a concert because if you don't yell no one can hear you.  I quickly learned that grandma's prime method of communication is mail and the written word.  Ummm... I'm a librarian and the job I've always wanted to have is a writer.  I LOVE writing letters.  I am a firm believer that there is something so special and fantastic about getting a physical letter in the mail.  So when grandma sends a letter or a card, I almost immediately sit down and write her a letter in return.  My mother in law regularly thanks me for writing to grandma and tells me how much grandma enjoys it, which makes me feel a little guilty because I enjoy writing, bringing someone joy, and with all the technology in the world, the opportunity to slow down and do something by hand.

One of grandma's more recent letters came after finding out the gender of the baby.  She asked that I keep her updated and the word "daily" was mentioned.  I responded and lovingly told her updating her daily would be difficult, but I would keep in touch the best I could.  Having heard from grandma so recently, I was quite surprised to see that she has sent a reply so quickly.  I looked closer.  The letter was not addressed to Matt, they never are.  This one shocked even me because I was not the intended recipient.  Scrawled across the card size envelope was the baby's name.  Despite the potential crime risk, the card was opened.  Inside was a nice card welcoming baby EGG (the baby's initials).  Grandma wanted to wish the baby a happy Easter and provide a gift.  Shortly thereafter, I told Matt we should go to the bank.  He quickly responded that a bank account cannot be opened for a person until they actually exist.  That statement was said with such quick confidence I questioned my husband.  Matt's mom has previously inquired about this.  Now we all know.  Thanks, grandma!

Baby Glasheen!

For the very few people who have requested additional information about Baby Glasheen, I am using my existing blog.  That is right, I already have a blog, but do not utilize it to its fullest potential.  However, with family far away and wanting more details I have decided to put this blog to good use.  The upside to this is that if you are reading this, the folks on my Facebook page who do not want to see these details appreciate that you are finding and enjoying the details here.  I suppose the biggest request to this point is the gender of our baby.  About a week ago, my mom hosted her first ever Gender Reveal Party.  There was pink and blue scattered throughout my parents' home and it was scattered with some of our closest friends and family.  I am fully aware that no one wants to read long blogs, so I'll speed things up.  Cutting a cake is the traditional reveal, but I wanted something bigger.  Plus, if there were a lot of people in attendance, then those who were unable to get a front seat would not be able to see and thus the event would have a different feel.  I wanted everyone to experience the same amount of excitement, so I painstaking shoved a black balloon into a silver or gray balloon, filled the inner balloon with shredded tissue paper, and then passed the balloons off to my wonderful husband to blow up and tie.  Yup, a huge pain in the butt with a very, very cool and fun result.  Click here for the video, with a big thanks to Deb Glasheen who taped the event, emailed it to me, and allowed me to post it here without giving prior permission, but I am sure will give her consent once she can be reached.  Enjoy and be sure to check back on Facebook for additional posts and other miscellaneous details.