How we spilled the beans

A while back, one of my IRL friends asked if/how we've told my parents the big news. Before I tell you the story, you need to know that in yet another strange twist of fate, my due date falls EXACTLY on my birthday.

This is just one of many, many signals we couldn't avoid picking up on. Of course, since we're expecting triplets, they will obviously arrive long before my birthday.

So here's how we spilled the beans at five weeks (yes, major leap of faith required): I called my mom, who lives about 12,000 miles away, and chatted with her for a little bit. You know, to make things seem like our "normal" weekly calls. I had her on speaker phone so Dh could listen in, then I said, "Now mom, do you realize that 36 years ago this week - EXACTLY - you found out you were pregnant with me?"

She had no clue where I was going with this, but she thought about it, did the math and then agreed. And then I said, "It seems history will be repeating itself..." There was a stunned silence before she realized what I was saying and then a whole lot of happy, excited, tearful laughter interspersed with, "Really? You're not kidding? But it can't be. Did you do another round of IVF?" She knew about the first failed IVF, but not that we attempted another cycle back-to-back.

By this time, she was telling my dad to pick up the other phone in their house. He had been outside and didn't hear the earlier conversation, so we got to do the same thing all over again - this time with my mom listening to my dad's stunned reaction. What fun.

A week later, we called them again and said it looks like we're having triplets. It was around April 1 and my mom thought we were playing an April Fool's joke on her. She just wouldn't believe it. She must have asked me about ten times whether I was joking before she finally relented and congratulated us.