When the pregnancy test came out positive Luke and I decided to not tell anyone until after our first appointment. The positive pregnancy test puts you at about 4 week pregnant and my first appointment wasn’t until I would be at 10 weeks. 6 of the longest weeks of our lives separated the most exciting news of our lives between us and the rest of our world. I lasted 3 weeks.

I got knocked up at the beginning of November and the week before Thanksgiving my brother’s wife, Sydney, gave birth to the most perfectly precious baby boy in the entire world, Harrison Hyatt Prudence.

 

 

Harrison was born at 2:45 in the  morning, at 3:15 I had a text from his grandmother asking if I wanted to drive to California to meet the newest member of our family. Additionally, my brother had asked our mom to drive my grandpa’s truck out to California to bring a load of their stuff back as they were getting ready to move back to Arizona. The thought of Grandma Prudence driving a truck across state lines by herself ignited the “gotta keep grandma alive to meet her other grandchildren” instinct and by 4:15 a.m. I had arranged to leave work early to take Grandma to Harrison. Luke couldn’t get off work at the last minute so this was a girls trip. I hadn’t been alone with my mom for 8 hours straight in longer than I could remember. I was excited but also nervous that I wouldn’t be able to keep our secret. When my mom and I were leaving Phoenix I asked her if she was ok to drive and she said yes. Between our house and the freeway, I felt my life was in danger at least 10 times so I suggested I take over driving duties and she happily obliged.

Kiel called and informed us that we would not be able to hold Harrison unless we had our flu and TDapp shots. My mom’s response to Kiel’s request, “This makes me feel like he thinks I am some kind of dirty flea bag hobo, not a respectable grandmother…” She pouted and complained and I told her she could feel any way she wanted but that I wasn’t driving her to California to not be able to hold Harrison. We stopped at 3 pharmacies between Phoenix and California which only added 2 additional hours on to our drive time! The first pharmacy had one shot but not the other, the second pharmacy had both shots but also had a 1.5 hour wait time riddled with a whole bunch of pissed off snowbirds in line ahead of us yelling at the pharmacists to hurry the F up. Really? What could they be in a rush for? The only acceptable explanation for their behavior was that the unexpected wait time was keeping them from mixing their pain killers with a martini in time to watch the sunset. Finally, the third pharmacy in Moreno Valley, California had both shots and no wait time, but we did have to fill out  forms and a questionnaire. No big deal. In true Bantlin sister style, my mom finished her forms first just to remind me of where my competitiveness comes from and then hung over my shoulder and detail reviewed my answers. Of course one of the questions was “Are you pregnant?” I answered “no”, signed my form and turned it in. Dissatisfied with her snooping, my mother trudged off to the bathroom to look at herself in the mirror kill time. As soon as the bathroom door closed I waived down the pharmacist like a lunatic and explained to her that I was in fact pregnant but that I hadn’t told my mom yet –  I felt like a girl on 16 and pregnant. Neither of us knew if the shots were safe to give to a pregnant woman and the pharmacy was closing in 5 minutes which didn’t give the girl enough time to research. My mother reappeared. The pharmacist called us over and explained that she couldn’t give me the shots since I indicated on my questionnaire that I get dizzy & light-headed / might pass out (true story) when I get shots and that she would be required to monitor me for at least 20 minutes but that the pharmacy closed before that. Bless her soul. She covered my butt. My mom got injected and we were off to Newport to meet Harrison. Finally, that night my mom got to hold Harrison for an hour straight and I have never seen her so happy in my life. So I guess it was worth it.

I, sure as shit, was not going to drive 12 hours to watch my mom hold Harrison, watch my sister in law eat delicious fresh poke as her first post Harrison exit meal and watch all three of them drink champagne. On Saturday we went to our fourth pharmacy inside a Ralph’s super market and it was pretty much the same story. I filled the questionnaire out wrong but then sent my mom to pick out champagne to celebrate with that night. Champagne to my mom is like a light to a baby…she was on her way to the liquor aisle before I finished the sentence. The girls in the pharmacy got a kick out of my story and had me all shot up with the good stuff in no time. Success! That night I got to snuggle Harrison which left my mom empty handed, thank god she had champagne to fill her time. I explained to everyone that I was nervous to drink and hold Harrison so that I was going to pass on drinking. Kiel and Sydney bought the story and probably appreciated that I didn’t want to drop their day old son down the stairs. However, once my mom gets champagne happy she wants everyone to get champagne happy so she was pushing it hard. She finally gave up and left me alone with Harrison which was the highlight of my trip! Also seeing my brother as a dad made me feel so proud and old and made me feel all sorts of feelings I wasn’t expecting. Harrison is one lucky kid.

I know now that I was paranoid and had convinced myself that my mom knew I was pregnant but that she wanted me to tell her the news without her having to ask. This paranoia caused me to be driven crazy by mother and by Sunday I was about to lose it. I didn’t have Luke to vent to so I told my brother everything on Sunday while he and I were taking his dogs for a walk. I told him I was pregnant in one breath and then told him how mom was driving me crazy in the next breath and I don’t think I stopped talking for the rest of the walk. It’s a crazy thing between siblings how you can go on all day about how crazy either one your parents is but as soon as an outsider calls them crazy they are as good as dead. I hope our kids think we’re crazy but I also hope they’ll defend us to outsiders. Anyway, my brother gave me a big hug and just reminded me that no matter how crazy mom is being that everything she does comes from a place of love. I felt better knowing that my best friend knew my biggest secret and that he was right about mom. I decided to not make her ride in the bed of the pickup on the way home.

Luke wasn’t surprised that I couldn’t keep our secret but I did promise to not tell anyone else and I kept the promise!!

This was an extremely long post to tell you about my inabilities to keep my mouth shut but I somehow had to work Harrison’s entry into the world on here since he is the most exciting thing to happen in Q4 2014.