Reactions (3)

I’ve been really enjoying these last few days, as we’ve started to let the news out and watched or heard people’s reactions. I had said to Mrs T that we’d need to be ready for people to ask whether it was planned or not, but she couldn’t imagine that people would be so presumptuous as to ask such a personal question. For once, I was right! I think she’s been really surprised at the sort of questions people have asked.

My brother (he of the “No WAY!” response) asked straight away whether we’d been ‘trying’ for long, and wasn’t satisfied with my (rehearsed) response of “sort of” and pushed for more. He specifically asked when we stopped using contraception, and I mistakenly let out “well, that was about five years ago” which surprised him. I’ve since persuaded him – I hope – that we were “open to the possibility” all that time, but just wanted to see what would happen. That is the gist of what we’re telling people, but in his case I expect he’ll try to get more details as time goes by.

Several others have asked about whether it’s “planned” or not, and our stock responses of “sort of” or “the time seems about right” seem to suffice for most. One friend I told last night said “It took you long enough!” to which I replied that we thought we ought to get to know one another first.

Award for the best questions so far go to Mrs T’s youngest brother. His first response to the news: “Are you just having the one, or are you going to have more after that?” which is perhaps getting just a touch ahead of us. (Though for the record I ought to mention that we won’t be planning to stop at one.) His next question floored us: he asked if was mine!

(He has since claimed it was a joke, and I think we can believe him.)