Exciting news!

Harrison and I have some VERY exciting news…

We’re expecting!

Baby Williams is due February 23, 2013 and we couldn’t be more excited! My due date is my late grandfather's birthday. I’m 16 weeks pregnant now, and I’m feeling great. The first trimester went well, as I rarely had any morning sickness (just an extra-sensitive gag reflex when brushing my teeth in the morning). I was pretty fatigued and ready for bed by about eight on most nights though. Thankfully, my energy has returned.

Here are some of the creative ways we told our friends and family the news:

For Harrison: I found out I was pregnant when I was about to leave work one afternoon. I thought, what the heck, I’ll take a test just for the sake of it. When I saw that second line, everything felt surreal. I called in my nurse assistant and asked her to confirm since I thought I might have double vision. Sure enough, I left work with fantastic news and the strangest feeling of excitement I’ve ever experienced.

Harrison and I had just brought Bernadette home four days earlier to become our newest family member. When I got home, I fixed a label to Bernadette’s collar that said ‘big sister.’ When Harrison came home, I told him that I had gotten her a new collar and that I wanted him to have a look at it. When he saw it, his first reaction was, ‘We’re getting another pug?’ I just looked at him and smiled as I watched things sink in for him. We were all smiles, hugs, and tears.

For my sister, Aileen: Because sisters are the greatest, I couldn’t keep my excitement to myself for long. I called her the next morning on the way to work. She was telling me about a cute new bathing suit that she’d bought. I said, ‘I hope you haven’t given away all of your maternity suits.’ She picked up on it right away, and it was so great to share the news with her!

For Harrison’s family: His mother’s birthday was July 2^nd, and Harrison’ sister came in town to surprise her. She doesn’t get to come often since she lives in Tampa, so it was nice having everyone together. After dinner, we all watched as my mother-in-law opened her gift. It was a cherished book that Harrison’s grandmother always read to him and his sister. Inside the cover, Harrison tucked away a birthday card that read “We got you another gift, but it won’t be her until February.” On the next page of the card, there was a picture of a huge bird flying with a screaming infant in its beak. Underneath it he wrote, “In case you haven’t guessed it by now, we’ll be getting one of these.” She got all teary and explained to the rest of the family that we were pregnant. Everyone was really excited, since for them, they’ll be first-time grandparents, great-grandmother, and aunt.

For my family: We were in Newnan celebrating my nephew, Blake’s, third birthday. After all the guests departed, it was just our immediate family (parents, Aileen’s family, Nate’s family, and David) and my brother-in-law’s sister, Julie. My sister told everyone to go outside for a family photo that Julie would take for us. As we all posed, Harrison announced, “On three, everyone say ‘Tracy’s pregnant!’” The photos turned out pretty funny as everyone tried to process what he’d said. There were a lot of confused faces, since it had appeared that I had just had a beer. Little did they know that I’d poured out the beer and filled up the Miller Lite can/bottle with water. My brother-in-law had set up his video camera to capture everyone’s reaction and that was hilarious to watch! My mom’s reaction was hysterical! This baby will be my parent’s 7^th grandchild in just 6 years!

Here’s a photo of the new redneck cans that were instrumental for pregnancy suspicion diversions on several occasions:

At one point, we also filled Grolsch bottles with water, which wasn't hard to do because of the recloseable tops.

For our friends, Joey & Erin: We went to Atlanta to spend the weekend with them for Joey’s birthday. As we were toasting for his birthday, Harrison said, “And just to steal from your ‘birthday thunder,’ we’re pregnant!” It was pretty funny.

For our friends in our weekly Niffer’s trivia team: The staff at Niffer’s were among the first to know, so that they could help us out with our diversion tactics. Every Monday night, we get together with friends for dinner, drinks, and quizzing of our pointless, random knowledge. Since June, I’ve been bringing Welch’s grape juice to trivia and handing it off to the bar tender. Every time I order the ‘house chardonnay,’ our waitress knows to get the bartender to pour me juice. No one ever expected a thing, although I thought they would since my beverage of choice is almost always a beer. On the night that we were ready to spill the beans, we involved the trivia announcer. When she read out the team names for the point standings, she announced our team name followed with, “otherwise known as ‘Tracy and Harrison are going to have a baby.’” That was a fun way to shock our friends, who also were a little confused since I’d been drinking ‘wine’ so often.

For my collaborating physician/coworker, Dr. Domingo:
We were discussing a particular medication, and I said that I wouldn't be able to take that med because it could harm the baby. It definitely caught him off-guard!

We’ve had so much fun spreading our news and now we can’t wait until we find out the gender. The ultrasound is September 25, but we’re waiting until October 6^th to find out with our families. We’ll be throwing a family and friends “Tailgate and Gender Reveal Party” at our house on the day of the Auburn v. Arkansas game. We’ve come up with a fun, original way to reveal if Baby Williams is XX or XY! I’ll post more on those festivities later! I not really pulling for one gender over another, I just want him/her to be healthy. Please keep Baby Williams in your prayers!