Announcing to the Bacon's (my immediate family)

This surprise took a bit of planning but I KNEW it was going to work.  You see, today is my Mom's birthday!  My mom is probably my most favorite person in the world (except maybe Eric, sorry everyone else, you all come in a close second) and it is not out of the ordinary at all for me to make a big production of her birthday. I sent her an itinerary of events starting with breakfast at 9 am and ending with cake and ice cream at 9 pm and once she approved the itinerary, I invited the rest of the family.  I also called up Adam and Kristie to get them in on a special plan of providing 3 separate birthday presents throughout the day.  I don't think it would have been suspicious if I was the only one doing 3 separate presents, but it might have made it more suspicious that I was video taping her opening the presents, so I am glad they played along because the video is PRICELESS!  So, the three gift themes were #1 - movie candy, #2 small gift, #3 actual present.  The baby surprise was my gift #2 which we were giving after lunch. 

So Eric and I show up with doughnuts at 9 am and we all give mom gift #1.  I gave her a bag of Swedish Fish and a vase with Tulips (it didn't fit anywhere else with my gift giving and Adam and KB were a little grumpy about it, but hey, the woman loves tulips), Adam gave her snow caps, and Kristie gave her cherry cordials. Then we head to the movie (Silver Linings Playbook) and I realize I have made a critical mistake...I forgot to film the first set of gifts! I panic but come up with a plan to begin photo documenting starting with lunch and then back track to take pictures of all the Gift #1's before proceeding to Gift #2's.  We go to Waffle house (which Mom loves for reasons unbeknownst to literally anyone else with taste buds) and lunch passes quickly and we are FINALLY on the way back to the house to do the second gifts. I lap back to take pictures of mom with the morning presents

and we get started with the afternoon presents.  Adam wants to go last because his present has a funny story behind it but Eric says "you DO NOT want to go last!" I want to punch Eric because I feel like he is going to give something away but no one thinks anything of it.  KB goes first and gives mom an Amazon gift card.  Adam goes second and gives mom and 5$ Kroger gift card wrapped in 3 dollars and with 3 dimes taped to the front.  At the beginning of the week Adam had had 28 dollars in poker winnings and he said he was going to double it up at his weekly poker game and use it to buy her present.  Poker did not go so well so then he only had $8.30 for her gift and she couldn't come up with a gift she wanted in that price range so Adam had to get creative.  She got a pretty good chuckle out of that one.

Next came the gift from Eric and I and to say she was totally SHOCKED would be an understatement.  The video below speaks for it self and is HILARIOUS (viewer discretion is advised, KB in her excitement to find out what is going on does drop one F bomb pretty close to the mic).

This is a close up of the onesies in the box; Mom's says "I can read Grandma like a book" (because she is an avid reader) and Dad's says "Grandpa's next project" but shows a baby playing in paint (because my dad was artistic back in the day and I am hoping he will pass that along to our baby)

Announcing to the Ilse's

So, the Ilse's are VERY smart people and apparently they are also naturally suspicious.  Eric and I wanted to surprise our families with the good news (which was possible since we had kept our frozen embryo cycle a complete secret) and we first dropped the hint about doing a family lunch while visiting Eric sister Kelly's house this past Monday. Eric just mentioned that he had been craving PF Chang's for a while now and since the nearest one to us was also near to them, maybe they might like to tag along. We were trying to be subtle but then when we also invited Eric's parent to come (who live nowhere near PF Chang's) everyone became suspicious.  You see, we normally go out with one group or the other, but rarely do we exert the effort to bring everyone together at once and especially in the wake of the icky stomach bug fiasco, it was difficult to play low key.  Kelly tried to cancel or move the lunch to another day to prevent further spread/re-infection but Eric insisted he still wanted to do it as planned.  At this point, I think everyone was expecting some kind of special announcement.  To try to throw them off the scent, and since I had had a job interview a week ago Thursday, Eric and I decided we would start off by telling everyone I got a new job.  When they asked questions I would say it was in home care, not the job I had actually interviewed for, and that it would start in 9 months. 

The day arrives and we do the script exactly as planned...and everyone seems a little less smart because they all stare at us blankly (except Kelly who smiles broadly right away).  We then give Eric's parents the gift we had planned (onesies with a ribbon saying "Baby Ilse Due October 1st, 2013) and they eventually catch on.  Mark wins the slowest to get there award because even after he figures out there is a baby he says "Wow, that is really nice of your new job to wait to let you start until after maternity leave!".  After that there was general congratulations and a good lunch was enjoyed by all.



The group at lunch

The surprise as boxed



Grandpa and Grandma Ilse with their onesies.  Grandpa's says "Grandpa's next project" and shows a little girl holding up her dress looking at her diaper (Grandpa is OFTEN doing project's at our house so this was good for him).  Grandma loves puzzles so hers shows a baby picture with a few puzzle pieces missing and says "It's no puzzle why Grandma loves me"

Houston, we have confirmation!

I finally got the digi to admit what I've known for almost two days now, I'm "PREGNANT"!!!!

Telling Daddy

So I woke up this morning and took another test and the line was slightly darker so even though the digital still said negative, I decided to go ahead and share the good news with Eric.  I have been planning this surprise for quite some time (ever since losing the first pregnancy which I announced by PowerPoint presentation).  The idea has morphed over time but the final product has been sitting in my closet for about a year now, waiting. Everything is packed inside a box which I pretended to bring in from our front porch as though it was just delivered by UPS.

When he opened the box, he saw this:

And when he pulled it out and opened it, this was inside:

 

Eric is an engineer so one of the onesies has a picture of a robot and says "my daddy engineered me" (Especially relevant since this is an IVF pregnancy). He also LOVES video games so the other onesie is a picture of a baby with a video game controller coming out of the umbilical cord and under that it says "1 UP". I have never been so happy as watching him open that box (except maybe when watching the second test line FINALLY show up)!

There ain't no doubting it now :)

I did not tell Eric last night because the lines were so light I was SURE he would not believe me.  I think I can tell him today though ;)  Here are this mornings tests and I think even fertile people should be able to see a line on at least one of these.  I have to do the post quickly because Kristie is coming up to visit and I would like to keep waiting to tell my family until we have more confirmation (blood tests) and we can do it as a cool surprise :) P.S. I am not a hillbilly, the post title is supposed to be a cute play on the song that goes "there ain't no stoppin' us now"

Here are the tests:

OMG...I think we have a second line!!! It worked!!!!

I am without question an early tester when it comes to pregnancy.  I can't seem to help myself. I mentally bargain with myself over how long I can wait/ how long I SHOULD wait to maintain my sanity! I was an early tester even when I was just charting because I figured if you knew within a day or two when you ovulated, you could know within a couple day window when to test. Well, IVF has been a whole new bag of NUTS because I know EXACTLY what the embryos looked like going in and ABOUT when a test might turn positive if there were one or maybe two babies in there.  So I started testing the morning of 2dp6dt and the tests have all been negative.

Well, I woke up this morning feeling well rested and optimistic...only to look at my morning tests and be disappointed to see them all (yep, I take MULTIPLE tests every morning) be negative. So, I left them on the counter to go down and take my morning meds and let old Hank (our dog) out and then come back up to brush my teeth and get ready and find....a possible super squinter of a second line on my Wondfo but the OSOM test is negative. So I dip an Answer test and force myself to walk away for 10 minutes (who knew 10 minutes lasted SO LONG!!!). Go back, Answer is a squinter, OSOM is a squinter, Wondfo still a squinter. OMG, OMG, OMG. I dip a digi...it comes back "not pregnant" but it doesn't crush my hopefulness because I think this is it. God I hope it darkens over the next couple days and I can get a positive digi by Monday so DH will let us go for the beta Monday morning!!!!!!
P.S. I am very much aware that most people (especially those among you who are fertile) can NOT see a line in these pictures.  It takes months and years of practice to be able to squint enough to make out the lines on these....but they ARE there ;)