I remember when....

...my brother and sister-in-law told me I was going to be an Auntie.

They were very very sneaky and kept it all very quiet and didn't tell anyone until they had the first scan done. If I remember rightly, I visited them the week that they had the scan done, so they didn't have to wait long to tell me.

Arriving at their house after the usual wearying journey across the motorways on a Friday evening, never the best of times for driving cross country, I was given a cup of tea and we all sat down to chat when my brother suddenly jumped up and said "I've got something to show you" and he dashed off for a few seconds.

He returned with a little rolled up piece of paper and gave it to me without saying anything at all. He and my sister-in-law must have been on tenterhooks waiting for me to unravel the paper and look at it.

I unrolled it and saw the baby pictures. My first thought was "why are they showing me E's baby pictures" (E being my sister-in-law's sister) and I was quite puzzled for a couple of seconds when all of a sudden I twigged the reason that they had hold of these scan photographs and that I was looking at my first niece or nephew!! (nephew as it turns out!!).

It was just over four years ago, but I still remember that moments confusion and realisation and the hugs that followed. It was a good weekend. I even remembered going out for a meal with them some weeks prior to this weekend and my sister-in-law not having any wine and whispering to my brother behind her hand - clearly she was already pregnant but didn't want to say anything then - it must have been agony for them not to say anything at that point in time!!

As with my story last Thursday, this has been prompted by Mama Kat's writer's workshop!