Welcome to what will hopefully be the first in a series of posts called Pregnant Pauses where I’ll step away from the day to day of being a work-from-home dad and tell a few tales about those nine months leading up to actually becoming a dad. When the missus pointed out last weekend that we were coming up on the year anniversary of us finding out she was pregnant, I thought it would be fun to relate the story of how we told our parents. We had actually found out the morning we planned to leave for New Hampshire to visit her parents to celebrate her dad’s birthday and go to a family wedding.

My father in law had asked for some family tree research for his birthday, so my wife signed up for one of those websites and found a bunch of things out. She decided to make a family tree using different scrapbook paper. She also had a flash of brilliance and decided to put “Baby Girl Dietsch, 2011” at the bottom between our names. I fully agreed with this incredibly clever way of telling her parents we were expecting. We were both pretty nervous during the four hour drive to the Hampsh. My wife had called and told her dad that it would be in his best interest to be awake when we got there (he usually goes to bed pretty early and we weren’t getting in until 11 or so).

When we got there we were tired and nervous and excited. My wife practically threw the wrapped family tree at her dad. He opened it carefully and was impressed. At the same time, my mother in law was mixing mojitos in a blender. The noise didn’t help with the nervousness and my wife asked her to stop. She finished the drinks and handed one to each of us. My wife casually held hers, while I took s a few long, much needed drags. We stared at her dad as his eyes moved from name to name, expecting a huge smile or a look of shock to spread across his face. Instead, nothing but a pleased smile. He was just about to hand it off to his wife when my wife suggested he look at the bottom. That’s when the surprise hit and he said something along the lines of “You’re pregnant?” That was followed by lots of hugs and whatnot. At the wedding we were all on the same page, but had sworn her parents to secrecy so we didn’t mention a thing. There’s a story in there for another time I’ll get to shortly.

But then we had to figure out how to tell MY parents. As it happened, we had planned for them to visit the next weekend or possibly the one after that. It’s a nine hour drive from where they live in Ohio to where we live in New York. I spent that whole day kind of anxious. We were only telling our parents and not anyone else at this point because a lot can happen in the early weeks/months and God forbid something happened, we didn’t want to have to tell everyone. When they called to tell me they got a late start, I apparently sounded perturbed. I was trying to keep cool, but I guess that wasn’t happening!

I don’t remember if my wife or I came up with the idea (probably her, she’s crazy smart), but as a way to tell my parents we decided to get a baby life jacket and give it to them saying we had seen it at the store and thought of them. My parents have a cottage on a lake in Michigan which has been a big part of our lives for years, so it seemed like a great way to tell them the good news. They finally got to New York and my wife finally got home from work. This time I was the one who practically threw the present at them. They were pleasantly surprised that we had thought of them, but had no idea what was inside.

As you can see, it’s not necesarily the most obvious of products. When they opened the bag they had no idea what it was. Sure, they knew it was a life jacket, but the first thing my dad asked is if it was for the cat. I couldn’t believe that neither set of parents got our gags right away. We weren’t trying to be THAT clever. As I was smiling and saying a leading “Nooooo” my mom screamed “You’re having a baby?!” I’m not talking about just a polite yelp here, but a full-on scream. It was so loud that I was worried the neighbors would think we were taking lives instead of talking about new ones.

Of course, all the parents–now grandparents–were very excited and have been great during the whole process, helping us out whenever we needed anything. The closest we came to being clever about telling anyone else about the new bundle of joy didn’t come for a few weeks at a friend’s birthday party, but that will be a story for another day.