The Strypes Pregnancy Series

Telling the Family

Evan:

"I'm so excited!" you squeak, twirling round in circles in the bedroom and then falling down on the bed on top of Evan.

"Woah, be careful" he grunts. "Baby, remember?"

"How could I forget? We're telling your family today! Like, I know I'm a third of the way through this pregnancy already, but this makes it feel so much realer, you know?"

"Yeah, I do. Especially since I'm not the one carrying him or her. So, do we have everything?"

You pick up the tray perched on the edge of a nearby chair and salute with your free hand. "Affirmative, commander! Mission is go!"

"Oh, shut up" he laughs.

"Well, you've been preparing this for weeks, so..."

***

Half an hour later, you pull up outside his parent's house. You are going round for Sunday dinner whilst you were visiting Cavan and the whole family is going to be there.

You climb out of the car, being careful not to slip and fall in your heeled boots. You'd made a particular effort with your appearance today, as it was the first time you would be seeing some of his family since your wedding. Also, you are telling everyone that you're pregnant, and that's a pretty big deal.

You were wearing light make up and a pink dress and cardi. Evan was dressed like always in a suit. You take a deep breath and ring the doorbell, looking back at Evan as you do so. He smiles and nods encouragingly and then tilts his head towards the door, alerting you to the fact that his mum is there.

She brings you into her arms and hugs you and then Evan.

"Wait, be careful. I have pudding on this tray. We baked it ourselves!"

"I'm so proud of you, honey" she smiles. "You can finally cook! It must be Y/N's good influence."

The rest of the large extended family rushes into the hall and engulfs you. They hadn't seen Evan for a while, so you were able to escape from the crowd forming around him and find the dining room to place the tray on the table.

You stand around awkwardly while you wait for someone to tell you that you can sit. Evan is the first through and motions for you to sit, silent like always. You two take seats next to each other and wait as the rest of his family trickle in.

There's an awkward silence as no one speaks whilst they wait for the food. Suddenly, Evan's mum rushes in.

"I forgot to put the oven on! The chicken is going to be a while. Does anyone have anything we could have now to stop us being peckish?"

You and Evan glance at each other, both thinking the same thing. You shyly raise your hand. "We have something we could serve now, just something small..."

"Sure, go ahead. I'll be out in a minute, if you want to start serving now-"

Evan interrupts. "No, stay here. You'll like this."

She tuts. "Well, if you say so, honey..."

You pull the covering off the tray and offer it to Evan's mum first. Her eyes go wide as she sees what's written in icing across the cupcakes: "we're having a baby!" Evan had even insisted on a whole separate cake for the apostrophe.

She gasps and tears fill her eyes. Everyone else crowds round to try and see what's on the tray; one by one, they all realised what this meant and started 'awh'-ing and hugging you.

Josh:

The photo at the top/side is similar to the kind of photo they would have done :)