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Weeks 11 to 12
The Secret's Out
By far, the best part of my pregnancy to date was telling Henry.
The day after our genetic results came back negative (we weren’t surprised but felt relieved nonetheless), I was bursting at the seams to let Henry in on our family secret. It was important to me that he know before my parents and in-laws, and that the circumstances surrounding the announcement were special and memorable. On vacation in Vermont, I cooked one of his favorite dinners—steak on the grill, bakery bread with cheddar cheese, and lemonade—and set the table outside for a feast. Everything cooperated: The breeze cooled the sun’s heat, the bugs flew elsewhere. I gave Jack a nod and he shrugged, "Okay."
“Henry, Daddy and I have a surprise for you.”
His eyes glimmered and he sat up straight.
“What is it? What is it? Tell me, tell me, please?”
“Well, you’ve been begging us to have a baby for a long time. You still want one, right?”
“More than anything in the universe, mama.”
“Well, you’re going to have a baby brother.”
He looked stunned; a face-enveloping smile smattered everywhere.
“No way,” he said, laughing. A moment later he was cracking up.
“Yes, it’s true.”
“You’re kidding me! Get outta here,” he went on. “You’re not going to born a baby.”
“We are.”
“Dad, is she kidding me?”
“No kidding, Henry, mommy’s having a baby boy.”
“And he is the luckiest baby in the word, Henry,” I added. “You know why?”
“Why?”
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“Because he gets to have you as his big brother, and no one in the world is a better big brother than you will be.”
“You think he’s lucky?” Henry asked, a bit taken aback.
“We know he is,” Jack agreed.
“I am lucky,” Henry corrected, and with that I began to melt into my teak chair. “Mama is he growing in your tummy right now?”
“He is.”
“Really, right now?”
“Yup.”
“How did he get in there, anyway?” Henry asked, baffled. We weren’t prepared for this line of discussion, which, in retrospect, was clueless on our part. Henry is captivated by how things work and why things happen. Naturally he would want to know all of the science behind how babies are made.
“We’ll get a book tomorrow and read all about that,” Jack offered quickly. Swift thinking!
There was a pause, then, “Can I see my baby brother now?”
“Not yet,” I said, “but in a few weeks we can show you a picture.”
“How do you know it’s a boy?” he asked, puzzled. Smart.
“The doctor takes a special test and then he can tell by looking in the microscope.” It was the best off-the-cuff explanation of genetic testing I could come up with.
With that, Henry leaped up from the table, yanked my shirt up to my neck, buried his face in my abdomen, and unknowingly embossed in my heart a moment that will forever be one of the best memories of my life. Because until that instant, I hadn’t thought about the interaction between my two boys—the beginnings of brotherhood. In my mind, and as an only child myself, they had been in separate silos: Kid #1 and Kid #2. Suddenly, they had a relationship with each other.
“I love you baby brother,” he whispered into the folds of my belly skin. “I’ll share all my toys with you and you can sleep in my room and when you cry I will hug you and you can even have the horsy striped shirt I loved so much when I was two years old. I love you, baby. I love you a huge much and I can’t wait to meet you.”
Little boys. Simply amazing.
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