“How to tell your parents that you’re pregnant”

I like to avoid the spotlight.  The idea of telling my parents (or anyone, really) that I’m pregnant fills me with the same feeling I get watching really awkward, awful scenes in movies.  I cringe and hide under my pillow.

So what do you do when you have a really tough problem but you can’t ask anyone for advice because no one knows your predicament?  You Google it!

And then you find out that 95% of the links are for teen moms, because apparently, 30-somethings aren't supposed have this problem.

One of the gems was this one - How to tell your parents that you’re pregnant: 8 steps (and you gotta love that two of the steps were actually blank).  Here are some highlights:

- Prepare your opening.  Don't scare your parents by saying, "I have some really bad news." 
(I actually did end up leading with, “We have news, and you both need to be on the phone for it.”  Mom gave equal odds to me saying that we were moving back to California :))

- Here are some things to consider: Do they know you're sexually active? If you've been secretly having sex for months, or even years, they will be more surprised than if they suspect. 
(AWKWARD.  I assume that they suspect.)

- If you're determined to have your significant other be there during your conversation, then make sure your parents have met him before and are aware that he exists. Bringing someone they don't know about into the mix during the big talk will just throw them a curve ball they don't need. 
(Whew! I hope getting married took care of that one....)

I joke, but for many teens, this is really serious stuff.  However, this was all still unhelpful for me. It’s an awkward conversation no matter when or where you have it, and I needed advice for how to pull it off as smoothly as possible.  My only goals were 1) to try REALLY hard not to cry, and 2) to make it clear that the last thing we needed was more pregnancy books - at this point, we literally could open our own bookstore.  Because we decided to wait until after 1st tri screening to tell the ‘rents, I had plenty of time to agonize over this conversation.

In the end, it was easier than I thought it would be.  It helped that I did the blood test early, and then made the call immediately after the NT scan ultrasound with complete results in hand, so I was still totally glowing with the happiness of knowing the baby was super healthy and happy (so far).  Timing is everything - plus I had cute US pictures that I could immediately email to them. 

Of course, they were thrilled - and husband handled the call to his parents, so I didn’t have to worry about that too :)  Next worry - what about coworkers, ugh?!?

Random thought: If you eat a banana and then you eat a strawberry popsicle, it tastes sort of like watermelon.