The Family Finds Out!

More than a week ago, my girlfriend’s mom decided to start telling the family about her being pregnant. It was quite a trying time for us because we were judged a lot by her family. For example, her Aunt told her that it would really hurt her grandpa and grandma’s feelings if we moved in together before we got married. Well, that may be true, but we’re not meaning to hurt anyone’s feelings. In fact, we’re hoping to remove the hurt from this by moving out together. We think that it would be more stressful on her family in general if we decided to live at her house before being married than it would if we moved out together.

The truth is, is that we love eachother. We know in our hearts that we will someday get married and we are in no hurry. I agree with everyone that it may be better for a child to grow up in wedlock, but it is simply not reasonable for us. Our baby is due in less than 7 months, and it would be nearly impossible to get married before then.

Family judgements aside, everyone now knows. The fact that we are still consealing our names no longer makes sense, so everyone out there who is just dying to know our names will be satisfied.

My name is Josh Winters. My girlfriend’s name is Rachel Barron.

I am glad that I finally can start using her name because I was sick of using pronouns and funny names like honey-bunches of oats to refer to Rachel.

Just days after Rachel’s mom told the family, it was her birthday party. And of course, we had to go out to eat. And of course, I sat right next to her grandpa, who just found out that I impregnated his granddaughter. I was surprised by his reaction when he showed up. He was actually very compassionate toward me, and he showed no signs of hating me in any way. It made me feel a lot better about the whole situation.

After lunch, Rachel’s grandma had a little chat with her on the way out. She told her that she was glad that she was with me and that I was a hard guy to find and that I was just like grandpa. That was something I never expected her to say because she is a very devout Catholic and I thought she would come down on me. She didn’t, however, and I am beginning to feel more and more like part of the family. 🙂

Later that day, during Rachel’s B-Day dinner, her uncle Bill called. He is a timid kind of guy, with very few things to say, and he was one of the first from her family to say “Congratulations on the baby”. That made Rachel very happy, I could tell. I know that she wants to be excited about having the baby, not negative, and it really helps when a family member approves and says congratulations.

First visit with the “doc”

Nervous as all hell, I sat in the procedural room with my honey. I pretended not to have a care in the world, but deep down I was sweating hard. I was nervous because there is a part of me that is always pessimistic. “What if the baby is not OK?” “What if I have undergone all this mental stress for nothing!?” I thought to myself. I was also nervous because I was going to be in the room while the “doc” was giving her a pap. Now, for any guy out there, I hope you agree with me that you think that is slightly weird to be in the room when your girlfriend is having a papsmear…. only slightly weird though. If you do enjoy this experience, your chances of being a serial killer slash pedophile when you grow up are 99 in 100, so good luck with that.

The first gal escorted us into the room, and she was a nurse I believe. She was very generous to us, as she gave us some great advice and tips. Gladly, she was not judgemental of us. She told us to forget about what everyone else had to say about us and that everything would be OK. This made my nerves calm somewhat.

“Doc” entered the room several minutes later and I have to admit my heart was beating. I had no idea what she would think of us, being that we are so young, and I also had no idea what was going to happen in there. She had just gotten done with a C-Section operation, and oddly wasn’t phased at all. She began to ask several questions on what our family history’s are and boring stuff like that.

As I was spacing off, wondering why I was in a room with my half naked girlfriend with “doc”, the buzzing of a machine snapped me out of it. It was the ultrasound machine. She rubbed some jelly on her belly (hehe) and placed the transmitter on the jelly belly. I was surprised at how quick she found where the baby was located (alright, I’ll give her credit, she is an ObGyn). I was amazed at how ridiculously tiny our baby was at that moment (3.23 cm!) At first, the baby did not move at all, but you could see an obvious heartbeat. While “doc” and girlfriend were blabbing on and on, I stared at the screen waiting for any movement. Finally, the baby shot up in the air like a kung foo fighter getting off the ground without using his hands. I blurted out “Movement! I see movement!”

At that very moment, this whole thing became real. Before, it was just talk. Yes, the baby was still there… but being able to see it was enough to make a grown man cry. I assume from the kung foo fighter moves that the baby will be a boy. However, things in my life tend to go opposite of what I want, so it will probably be a girl. The main reason why I want a boy isn’t because I want it to “carry on my legacy” or because I want it to “go fishing with me”, but I believe that having a boy first is good because then all the other siblings can be protected by a big brother. That is truly my only reasoning for wanting a boy first.

So, after all everything was just fine. The baby is doing alright, even though we still won’t know for sure if it is completely healthy until later on in the pregnancy. It feels like I have a whole new perspective on the way this pregnancy is going now. I feel much better about it now.

The picture below is a picture of the first ultrasound. As you can see, the baby is 3.23 cm long and 10 weeks 1 day old. CLICK THE IMAGE FOR A LARGER SIZE.