Coping with Disaster 101

Run and hide.  Yep, that is my solution.  When something goes drastically wrong, just remove yourself from the situation.  And what situation was it?  Allow me to explain.

My ILs are super excited about the baby, which is good.  What is not good is the fact that they have been bugging J for weeks about telling everyone... or "spreading the news," as my MIL put it.  They can not seem to wrap their brains around the fact that it is NOT their news to spread.

Anyway, J and I decided to tell our friends Saturday night before the town Christmas party.  Repeat: OUR FRIENDS.  Oh, and we had told the ILs that they could tell family members.  What they heard was, "Please feel free to tell everyone and their mother's brothers."  And that is exactly what they did.

So as I entered the Christmas party Saturday night I was immediately bombarded with people.  In case I have not mentioned it before, I'm not too particularly fond of people, in general.  Especially those who will pass you in the grocery store without a word because they can't be bothered.  These are the same people who feel that, now that I am pregnant, they should be privy to every detail.  Some even going as far as to say that they didn't know we were trying....

Ummm, no shit.  FYI, my sex life is none of your effin business.  Why is it that people think an appropriate response to someone being pregnant is to ask "were you trying?"  People, I'm 30 years old, I believe I understand how to prevent pregnancy.  Steam is coming out of my ears as I type.  For serious.

Back to my original thought process: coping with disaster.  Needless to say, the party was completely ruined for me.  I tolerated it for as long as I could.  And then I left.  Yep, after an hour and a half of being under the microscope, I left the party.  Oh well, sitting on my couch watching football and eating Cheez-Its was a much better alternative to freezing my ass off while everyone else got drunk. 

And then there was...

Silence?  Not really what I expected from our big announcement.  We had it all planned out perfectly, but what we could not plan for was the reaction (or non-reaction) from our parents.  My brother and his girlfriend came over early, as we needed them to take pictures for us.  My brother, whom I fully expected to respond to the news with a shrug and "cool," showed a wider range of emotion than anyone else.  And he just smiled... and said "cool."

Our parents got to our house around 2:00pm.  I could not contain myself, so I decided that we would go ahead with our surprise.  We had ordered a cake that said "Happy Birthday Grandparents."  We sang and presented them with the cake.  And then there was... silence.  Yep.  That is all.

J's mother finally asked if we were celebrating something else.  I answered yes, and she let out a yelp of excitment, ran over and hugged me.  Then J's father hugged me and said "oh yeah, happy anniversary."  No, no, NO!!!  What is wrong with you people!!???  Then my mother says that she knew, that she could tell in the last week by things that I said.  Whatev.  I think it was a well educated guess.  However, she had picked up a little Mom-to-Be Hallmark angel for me.  Very cute and the one indication that she was excited.  I think it took the wind out of her sails that she wasn't the first to know.  My dad took a few minutes to understand what was going on, but he was excited, too. 

Overall, it did not go as planned, but what ever does?  Our parents are all thrilled beyond belief, even though it took them a few minutes to process the information.  It was a nice afternoon and I felt free to eat all the birthday cake I wanted.