We're Having a Baby!
By Paul Morrone CFP®, CPA, MSA
I know it’s a little late to be writing about Christmas, but bear with me, as we had our own little Christmas miracle in our house. In the midst of the holiday chaos, on Christmas eve no less, we found out that Jill was pregnant. It was an amazing moment and we were thrilled to find out during such a special time of year. However, being the holidays, this posed a monumental set of challenges. As we knew it was very premature to tell anyone, even our immediate family members, we had to figure out how to keep it quiet until we could confirm everything with the doctor. I don’t like keeping secrets, and hate lying even more, but sometimes, on very rare occasions, it is entirely justified. This was one of those instances.
If you’re not aware keeping a pregnancy secret in our family and group of friends is like a sport. The women watch over each other like hawks, constantly watching as to whether someone is drinking or not while whispering and speculating between one another. The men, not so much. We went out and bought grape juice to fill Jill’s glass to throw them off, which worked surprisingly well. A curve ball was thrown at us when we did a champagne toast for my Uncle Tom’s 60th birthday, but a quick switch of the glasses and no one was the wiser. We flew through the family events under the radar, but still had to get through New Year’s and other holiday parties with friends. Needless to say, she’s had her fill of grape juice for a lifetime.
Eventually it came time to tell our family, and the timing couldn’t have been better with our Florida trip in early January. If it were up to me, I would have kept it simple and just walked in the door and said “Hey mom and dad, we’re pregnant!” but Jill had a better vision of how it was going to play out. She ordered a shirt off of Etsy to put on Buddy and made him the billboard for our news, it read ‘Soon to be Big Brother.’ When we finally did arrive in Florida we put the shirt on Buddy and sent him out to see my parents on the lanai. My mom was just happy to see Buddy in a new outfit and was already giddy with excitement. Of course he couldn’t stand still and neither of my parents could read what the shirt said. After a few ‘where are my glasses?’ comments, they finally found their eyesight and my mom screamed so loud that the people on the beach below snapped their head back in our direction. To no one’s surprise, my dad cried while Jill and I took it all in. Buddy had no idea what was going on but was just happy to be part of the action, although he is going to have to learn how to share my mom’s attention when the baby does come around.
So yes, it is official and things are going well and Jill is due at the end of August. Even more exciting is that we just found out that we are having a baby boy and everyone is happy and healthy. Jill is feeling well and I constantly remind her that she is lucky that she is the pregnant one and not me, as I don’t think I could possibly handle everything as well as she has. I don’t know who is more excited, us to be parents or my parents to be grandparents!
