My husband and I had our Christmas plans scheduled long before Thanksgiving.

Although it’s a busy time of visiting family, we have a pretty set routine: We spend Christmas Eve and Christmas day with one family and then travel in the evening for a couple of days of festivities with the other family. The next year we swap which family gets which days. So imagine our surprise when my mother-in-law called about two weeks ago to see if we wanted to completely change up our holiday plans. In fact, they would save us a trip and come to our apartment! And they could come on the days we were set to see my family!

While I love Christmas Eve with my family (yummy mini-sandwiches, "Twas The Night Before Christmas" and my mother’s usual franticness while carrying “Santa’s” presents downstairs and hanging stockings by the fire with stress, etc.), this seemed a little difficult. My family had already made their holiday plans around when we would be in town, and we weren’t really being “saved” from a trip to CT as we would still need to head down there sometime to share the holiday with my husband's extended family.

Realizing that the purpose of my mother-in-law's proposed visit was to check out our new apartment, we suggested that we keep our holiday schedule and that they could visit us, and our digs, later that week, on Dec. 28. On that day, my husband and I had a doctor’s appointment during which we would learn the gender of our baby, whom we had nicknamed Skeletor after our first ultrasound pictures. My in-laws could then join us for dinner, where I was sure we would get an influx of baby name suggestions. My husband took this idea a step farther when he eagerly suggested that his parents could come to the ultrasound appointment with us!

I looked at him, trying to understand whether he was joking. I could not read the grin on his face, but I did understand the grimace on my face. Seeing Skeletor kick and wriggle on the ultrasound screen is amazing and neat, and I can see how it could be something to share with others who are equally excited about your pregnancy. However, I selfishly wanted that moment to be with my husband. And there is something very unappealing about lying in a doctor’s office with my pants unbuttoned and fluid on my belly in the company of in-laws.

I can blame my grimace on my pregnancy brain, but I know that I would have the same reaction in any brain-state. So we stuck our original holiday plans. And we began to wonder what our Christmas plans will look like once Skeletor joins our family.

R.B. Austen lives in New England and was excited to learn at her last ultrasound appointment that Skeletor is a girl.

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