The Announcement(s)

Friday, September 21 - Monday, September 24, 2012

After weeks of waiting for our first appointment with our new OB (We've known since August 5) and much contemplation about how to share the big surprise with family that is 350 miles away once we went to the doctor, we were finally ready to make it happen.  We really wanted to do more than just call and say, "oh, by the way..."  We considered several possibilities of sending packages or photo cards, but that was too variable and we wanted to have a little more control over when and how it went down.  Haha. Wishful thinking on our part, as you will see.

The Set-up

In the end we hatched (pardon the pun - wait for it, it's coming) a plan to set up this blog with the "We're Growing by 2 Feet" pictures that would take in our backyard on Friday night.  To get our families to the blog we chose to send each mom a bouquet of flowers with instructions in the note card.  Sounds great!

Friday morning, while at work, I found the cutest arrangement of white and yellow daisies (trying to be gender neutral here) that came in a cute yellow chickadee container.  That's when it all clicked.  The note would read, "A little birdie told me a secret.  Go to wjbishopfamily.blogspot.com to find out what it is."  Tada.  I ordered the arrangements for delivery on Saturday.  That way we knew everyone would be home to receive them and we would be available to answer the ecstatic phone calls that would soon follow.  Friday night, after picture taking and a yummy steak dinner (a pregnant girl has got to eat), we went live with the blog and began our wait.

The Execution

We waited, and we waited, and we waited.  We tried to have a normal day Saturday, but what is normal about telling your parents that they are going to be grandparents for the first time!  After fruitless attempts to contact Teleflora to find out the status of the order, we gave up for the day.  The letdown after all the anticipation and a washing machine that flooded my laundry room twice that day left me pretty blue.

Monday Will was able to contact Teleflora and found out that our order had been sent to a shop that no longer had an account with them.  Basically the order had been sucked into the black hole of cyberspace.  They refunded our money and gave us coupon codes but when I tried to place the order again I wasn't able to locate any florists in Memphis that would fill the order.  My raging hormones had about all they could handle at this point so I had to get Will back on the case.  Also, I now had my heart set on that chickadee vase and the cute saying.  After some searching we were able to find a florist in Memphis that had the vase and could deliver the flowers the same day, so my precious husband placed the orders.  But no one was home to receive them....except my sister, Julie, who happened to be off work that day.  She was our last hope to surprise our parents.  That meant I had to make a phone call on my lunch break.

Heart racing, I face timed Julie on a bench outside my office on campus.  After readjusting and getting a good signal (I had never face timed before) and a little small talk about the wedding I told Julie that I had a little problem with the wedding.  Hesitantly she said, "OK, what."  "My dress isn't going to fit." You see, my sister is getting married on January 12, 2013.  I will be about 30 weeks pregnant then and we were fitted for bridesmaid dresses back in early summer and they had just arrived.  The meaning of my dress not fitting was not lost on Julie.  She knew immediately and all I heard was a lot of joy, "nuh uh", "shut up", "oh my gosh", and even saw a few tears.  It was great to get to see her reaction.  Needless to say she didn't seem too concerned about the dress. 

After the emotions died down and I told her some more details, I had to ask for her help.  Thankfully Jules is awesome and was very willing to help us pull off the rest of the surprise.  The plan entailed having both arrangements sent to her at Mom's house and she would deliver the other arrangement to the Bishops' shortly before they got home from work, leave it on the doorstep in their garage, and return home before mom arrived.  That is exactly what happened, although she did just barely miss Jenny driving home from work.

The Response

Will got home from work around 5:30 and we sat on our bed ready for the phone to ring.  Shortly after (well, at the time it didn't seem shortly) Will's phone began to ring.  Let the fun begin.  Unfortunately Jenny and David had driven to work separately that day and he was still in a meeting at work so he didn't get to experience it with Jenny, but she had called him right away and told him what was going on.  "Oh, we're having a baby," was her comment when she saw the pictures.  One of her first questions of Will was "How did the flowers get here."  Ha. She was very excited and later David brought home two candy bars to celebrate the momentous occasion.

Julie was keeping me informed of Mom's status along the way.  At one point I got this text...."Lord have mercy, she read the note and went to change." "She's killing me."  After changing out of her work clothes into her "Life is Good" t-shirt, Mom went upstairs to check the blog.  Julie already had it pulled up on the computer, so she saw as soon as she set down.  The phone call I got started with "Oh my gosh, I'm going to have a heart attack.  I can't breathe.  Julie, where's the paper bag."  She was over the moon and extremely surprised.  She told me she had other thoughts about what the "secret" might be, but not what it was.  Come to think of it, i've never heard what her other thoughts were.  She later scolded me (jokingly) for keeping it a secret for so long. 

In the end the surprise went off well and it was nice to finally be able to talk about it with everyone.  I no longer had to tiptoe around certain topics or make plans for the holidays and wedding knowing they may all be different once the news was revealed.
Later Monday night we also told Granny, Poppy, and Amy.  Tuesday night I was able to share with my Dad.

We are very thankful to have such loving, supportive parents, siblings, and grandparents, and we look forward to adding a new little person to this family.

Public announcements were made to the Worship staff on Wed., Sept. 26, the Mobberly ministerial staff and our small group on Monday, Oct. 1, the general Facebook and Twitter population on Tuesday, October 2, and the Mobberly choir on Wed., Oct 3.  

With that it is official, official. We're having a baby! :)