Telling Loved Ones

There were a few people on my immediate list that I knew I HAD to tell right away after we found out we were pregnant. I still have not yet told all of my family and definitely not the majority of people. However, there are two main stories I'd like to write out so that the memories remain alive. For some of my close friends, I merely texted them my excitement, and for them, that was enough. For others who we knew we'd be seeing the two days after we found out, we had some surprises up our sleeves!

I'll write the story of how we actually found out during a later post, what I will say is that we found out on a Thursday night. The stories I'm going to write about now took place on the Saturday and Sunday following Thursday.

Saturday at The Baugh's
We play games every week with our good friends, Jenn and Matt. I knew I wanted to surprise them somehow with the news that weekend but I wasn't sure how. I asked Ramin to think about it on Friday night and he came up with the PERFECT plan!

All of us have a favorite game called Agricola. We've played TONS of games and we always love when we can go back and play Agricola every few weeks.  We were due for a round of it and so Ramin had the awesome idea to change one of the standard cards of play.

Behold the picture below. The left side represents what the card actually looks like, and the right side is how I modified it with our news!

The thing about this card is that it's a standard card that we all know VERY well. Ramin and I guessed that it would take Jenn and Matt a while to even notice something was different about it - at least that's what we were hoping :)

So that night we headed over and we told them we brought Agricola because Ramin didn't feel like learning a new game. We didn't get much questioning about it because we all love it anyway. We played the first few rounds as normal (it takes a good couple rounds before this card actually comes on to the board). When I saw Ramin turn the card over and lay it on the board my heart started to pound...I wondered if they'd notice right away.

They didn't. 

We played a full round before I started sweating bullets. I casually took a glance at Ramin who was sitting to my left and I saw that he had covered his mouth with his hand...trying to hold in his laughter. He saw me glance over at him and then we both just started busting out laughing - we couldn't contain ourselves.  Poor Jenn and Matt wondered what the heck we were laughing at. It was obvious they were completely bewildered.

Ramin and I tried to cool ourselves down but we just couldn't contain it. Ramin could see the confusion in their faces and said something like "It's an inside joke". It seemed to me that his comment didn't appease them. So I said "We'll tell you after the game".

We finally calmed ourselves down long enough to continue play as usual. We started getting ready for the next round and started laying out new cards and pieces. Just as Ramin moved his hand over the card, it drew Jenn's attention to that area. I intently watched her eyes as she took a second look at the card and then jumped up crying and screaming about how happy she was! She jumped out of her seat and came over to me and started hugging me!

I was so happy she figured it out but I could see across the table that Matt was completely mystified as to what was happening. I asked him if he knew what was up yet and he said that he figured I was pregnant because that's the only reason why Jenn would be crying and hugging me like that, but he had clue how Jenn found out.

We showed Matt the card and then all was revealed. I think we really got them good and I think they really loved the surprise :) I love surprising people and seeing their reactions. We all agreed to leave the card the way it is for the rest of the time we play. It's a good reminder of our fun announcement story :)

Sunday - Mom and Chris

For my Mom and Chris I knew I wanted to surprise them as well. I decided to get them each a neutral color onesie with a little phrase on it indicating something special for them. For my Mom I got a "Grandma's Little Peanut" onesie and for Chris I got a "My Uncle is the Best!" onesie. I knew they were both supposed to come over on Sunday around the same time and I was planning to give them the onesies in little gift bags and tell them it was a leftover gift from our Vancouver trip that I forgot to give them.

But Ramin had a better idea.

Saturday night he stayed up making a special "app" - see below:

The plan was to pull up this "app" on my phone and show my Mom and Chris that I could translate the barks of my dog Belle - who can basically bark on command.

This app really isn't an app at all, although on the phone it looks like one. I actually have my browser pulled up and Ramin hosted a dummy website that he could control. When you press on the screen you'll see a running dog animation and then when we stop recording the barking dog, you'll see a translating page. Keep in mind that all of this is fake of course. But, to make it look real, Ramin can manipulate the site to make the translation say whatever he wants!

So both my Mom and Chris arrive at my house, my Mom was there before Chris so we had to wait for him to get there. The minute he got there I stood up and said "Hey, I have this new app I have to show you guys!" I ran into the office and whispered to Ramin to get ready ;)

I come back into the living room and show them the homescreen so they'd buy in to my "app". I then start recording and ask Belle "What's your name?" Ramin types in "My name is Belle" and it magically appears on my screen! Both my Mom and Chris were blown away - my Mom more so than Chris.

Next I could see that Belle really wanted her toy so I asked her, "What's this red thing in my hand that you want?". She didn't quite get a good bark, so I asked her again. This time the translation came back as "That's my toy!" and I showed it written on my screen to my Mom and Chris. Again, my Mom was in total shock and laughed with surprise. Chris was more skeptical and more quiet - I'm sure he kept thinking "How does this crap work?!"

Finally I told my Mom to make it work. I told her to ask Belle what the news of the week was. She had no hesitation about the question and proceeded to try it. However, the way she asked the question wasn't very loud and she looked directly at the phone instead of Belle, so Belle didn't bark. We had to try it again.

When I helped her out I pushed the translate button and a few seconds later the message of "Jenn's Pregnant!" popped on to the screen. My mom was holding the phone and looked at the message for a few seconds before reacting! She just got this huge grin on her face and started laughing and smiling. I bent down to hug her on the couch as I showed the phone to Chris. He was super happy and still wondered how the heck this "app" worked.

Ramin came out of the office now that our ploy had worked and gave everyone a hug.  It was a great feeling surprising them with the news :)  I then gave them each the onesie's I bought...and I'm sure eventually we'll get to use them.


All in all we had some good surprises. I think we've let everyone know the news in the best way we could tell them. There's still a few more to go, but I'm already excited thinking about the way we'll announce the pregnancy officially on Facebook - which will be near Halloween - that's for an upcoming post!