Mike kind of pushed my hand in telling people sooner. He's told his parents and so I felt the need to inform mine just to keep peace with them. I've written them a letter (actually a card and two additional notebook pages, front and back.) I typed it out in Word just to get the a feel for what I wanted to say and what I'll be telling others as well. I've posted it below. That is the rough draft of it. I tweaked a few things and added a few things as I was writing it down. I don't know how well it's going to be recieved. And I don't care to imagine it. I got what I needed to out and so the next step is to see if they respect what we're asking for.

We’re pregnant again. I wanted a way to lay out everything that we want/need without being interrupted, or have it forgotten. This is it.

We do not want to hear “I knew it”, “I had a feeling” , “Do you want to know what it is?” or anything regarding vibes or whatever along those lines. We don’t even want to hear ventured guesses. If they come up in conversation, I will leave or hang up the phone with no good bye, I don’t care about being rude if you don’t care to respect what we need during this anxious journey. We don’t even want to overhear it in a conversation with other family members. It doesn’t help the situation. Also, I am in the care of a concerned doctor, so be forewarned that any well-meaning advice will be tuned out.

We will also not be disclosing the baby’s sex if/when that point in time comes. There’s no need to ask. No one knew we had a daughter until she was in the doctor’s hands. That is when the rest of the world will know with this one. We also will not be disclosing the due date. We (myself especially) focused so much on Robin’s due date that now that date will always have a dark connotation. I’m currently at 5 weeks, a pregnancy lasts an average of 40 weeks, if you’re really interested you can do the math. We don’t want to hear any guesses for boy/girl or when it will be due. We absolutely do not want people counting down; we aren’t doing it and we’d prefer to not have people approaching us with “X weeks left!” We’d rather celebrate the successful weeks that have passed than only focus on the stressful weeks approaching.

It probably goes without saying but I will put it out there anyway: this baby is not a replacement for Robin. This is our second child and will always be regarded as such. Should this child have the opportunity to grow up in our family, it will be aware of its sibling’s existence. We will still talk about Robin, she will never be a taboo subject in our family. However, we do not want to hear that you think there was probably something wrong with Robin. That brings us no comfort.

As for the children in our extended family (Hannah, Jacob, Benjamin, and Josh) please confer privately with their respective parents about what they have told their kids about this pregnancy. We are leaving it up to them to explain the whats/hows/whys and we want their family’s wishes respected as much as ours. We are not aware of how they explained the loss of Robin to them (if they did at all) and don’t want it to cause problems of how they choose to communicate with their kids.

I’d really appreciate it if people would ask Mike how he is holding up. He puts a lot of effort into making sure I’m still “stable” and his (mental) needs often go unmet. We don’t want to focus everyone’s attention solely on this pregnancy, nor do I want everyone’s attention on me. But occasionally acknowledging that this is hard on him to would be nice. Just asking how he is doing once in a while will give him the chance to talk if he wants to. And if he doesn’t, we’ll still appreciate that the option was afforded him.

On a final note, we are asking that if people desire to pray for us or simply to think positive thoughts for us to not declare their intentions to either of us. We do not have an appropriate response for your good intentions. Just know that they are appreciated (and personally, I do remember from religious ed there’s a bible passage stating that god favors the man that prays privately in his closet, rather than he who shouts in the middle of his temple). We also do not believe it is god’s will to take babies from their loving parents. If people really feel the need to let us know that they are on our team (so to speak) something along the lines of “I’m happy for what you had and sad for what you lost, but I’m hopeful for your future” will do.

This is not meant to hurt anyone’s feelings, it’s only meant to ensure that we don’t have a more difficult time than is necessary. This is what we need and I’m hoping everyone can understand that. Everyone is getting a personalized letter from me, all for the same reason: This pregnancy is already very different than our first (as we expected) and we will be handling it differently as well. So please get in touch if you want, just make sure that everything mentioned applies beginning with that first phone call. (Do not be upset if there is no answer, my work schedule has gone into effect as of Wednesday.) I need to discuss how/if to tell Gram with you. She didn’t seem to thrilled about the previous pregnancy, I’m contemplating holding off on telling her and I’d like both of your opinions. We love you both, and again, this wasn’t meant to be offensive, I just deemed it the best way to get everything out without having people forget it or we forget to mention something and then get unnecessarily upset.