How we announced our pregnancy

I’m now over a month into maternity leave and have some time while my baby naps on me to write some posts I didn’t make time to write earlier this year.

We had a crazy winter. Tyler’s back had hurt on and off for years. Finally in December he couldn’t work any more until he had surgery in January. Also in December, our chimney leaked causing our basement to have a minor flood, which ruined our carpet, some drywall, and trim. Then, to top it off, we found out I was pregnant in December. Although we wanted a baby, it was a lot at one time. I thought it would take longer to get pregnant than it did.

So, the night of Tyler’s surgery, we told our parents that we were expecting. It was a perfect day to surprise them because all four of them visited Tyler and they certainly weren’t expecting it. Unfortunately, it was also the day that Tyler’s parents signed divorce papers. In planning this announcement, we didn’t realize they were doing that on the same day. An unforgettable day for everyone.

We gave each of our parents a frame to put their grandkids’ photos in and left a blank spot for Ellie. Tyler printed, “Baby Fairchild Coming 2016” in the frames for his parents. For mine, I printed, “The only thing better than having you for a mom [or papa] is my child having you for a grandma [or grandpa].”

My step-sister had a baby the month before me so I left space for her baby too – hence the fake family still in my mom’s frame. I added the ultrasound photo as a placeholder for Ellie in this frame since it had an extra slot and she had the most grandkids. For the other parents, we used the words as the placeholder.

We announced to our parents a little before 12 weeks because we were excited and overwhelmed with everything happening in our lives. We asked them not to tell anyone else, but my dad told his family anyway. We slowly started telling family at 12 weeks.

After our close family knew, we announced on social media with a picture of us and our dogs.

Our baby was due in August, but she ended up making her debut in September.