Pregnancy series: A Second confirmation

After a night of excitement and little sleep we had one mission the next day: a pregnancy blood test. Typical of human nature, we tend to question everything in life. As if two positive urine pregnancy tests were not enough, we decided to give the blood test a go. When the phone call came through to say that I am somewhere between 6-7 weeks pregnant, we knew that we could start planning for a whole new life venture.



I guess one of the first questions is when do we tell family and friends? There certainly goes some planning into this – there is a ranking order of who should know first. It would definitely not be in very good taste if the whole facebook community knows before you have even made a phone call to your parents in law.


Fortunately for us Mario’s birthday was coming up and we had planned a family lunch for that day, so we just seized the opportunity to make that our day of announcement. We figured that none of the future grandparents would smell rat if we have them all together when Mario makes a casual announcement about the little (at that stage it was still literally little) gift to all on his birthday.


Our plan worked very well. I had my first scan the week before the lunch, so I went so far as to make a personalised card from Gruffels to his grandparents, giving them his first picture. Nobody expected anything, but Mario gave a little of it away, when he hesitated and then asked the waiter only to pour me a little bit of wine – that is just not the way my family know me, I usually enjoy my wine…


There are so many things which made that day special. Having my family with me to share in this life changing event, to see their faces, to know that this life you are carrying will have an impact on so many other lives. There are two specific things which I will never forget: the first one is my grandmother’s reaction. She always had a wish to see her great grandchildren, and I know that she has, in the last few years, especially since all her subtle pleas have fallen on deaf ears, buried that dream. At the age of 88 she also realised that she might not be there anymore to witness this event. That made her reaction so special: “I prayed to God, that he must come and take me, as I had a good life, but now I will definitely pray that He will just save me to see my first great grandchild.” I realised that we are motivated, kept alive every day, by that which we are looking forward to. As long as you have something to live for, a reason to stay alive, you can live beyond any prediction or limitation of health or age.


The second thing I realised was the power of social media. While we were sitting at the lunch table, my mother in law sent a text message to my brother in law. He immediately put a comment on facebook referring to his changing status as an uncle. If I say that it was five minutes it would probably be too long, but around that time we received a phone call from Mario’s cousin congratulating us – her source of information: Rick’s facebook page. Needless to say, we did not tell many people about the news ourselves – facebook generally did most of the work for us…






Next: Being sick, without being ill…