Roger That, Preggers!

As you all know, Jonathan and I were a bit on the cautious side when it came to sharing the news of this pregnancy. There were many reasons for this decision, one of which was the fact that I work with college students. If your college was anything like mine, or anything like the Greek community at this University, you know that news travels fast. Lightening fast. Once news gets out, it cannot be reigned in, so we decided to share that news when we were ready for the world to know.

One of the perks of my job is that I get to really live life with students, learn about their struggles, share a little life wisdom here and there. One afternoon about a year ago, the president of our fraternity council was hanging out in my office and telling me about his love life. He didn't have a girlfriend, and he was sick and tired of all of his Deep South, you-should-be-married-by-20 family members pestering him about his absentee lady friends. After his rant was over, I gently spoke the truth:

"Dude, just get used to it. Right now they want to know when you're going to get a girlfriend. When you get a girlfriend, they'll want to know when you're getting engaged. When you get engaged, they'll want to know all about the wedding. And when you've been married for a few months they'll want to know when you're going to have kids. It never ends! Right now, Jonathan and I are in the baby phase. We've been married 5 years, and people ask when we're going to have kids as though we are senior citizens!"

Well, friends, never let a college-aged boy in on the thing that bugs you. It was just a wide-open door.

"Oh, really??? So now every time I see you I should ask if you have any news for me?" he said with an ornery grin. What's a girl to do?

So for the past year, without fail, every time I saw this student he greeted me with, "Got any news for us?" He even got the rest of the fraternity council in on the joke. Over the summer, however, absence erased the mind and they seemed to have forgotten all about it.

And then, I did have news. Secret news.

Fraternity recruitment rolled around. I was about 8 weeks pregnant and spending entire days with this group of guys, trying to hide any hint of the fact that I finally did "have news." We were all using walkie talkies to communicate between fraternity houses, and the guys decided to make up call names for one another.

I sat in the golf cart, listening to their shenanigans over the airwaves, and laughed at the silly names they were coming up with (mind you, some of them were standing right there with me, but they were being boys and still talking through the walkie-talkies). And that's when it happened. Through the white noise, this is what I heard...

Phhhhhshhhhhshshss..."What's Leslie's name going to be?"... Pshsshshshshshshsh...

Psssshhhshshshshshshsh.... "PREGGERS!"

Oh. My. Gosh. How do they know??? Is it that obvious already??? Oh my word.

So I did what any girl with a secret would do. I played it cool. I embraced it. I didn't bat an eye. Didn't flinch. And I laughed inside. Because little did they know, they were right.

"Yep, guys...that's right...just call me Preggers."

For the rest of the week, I had the silent satisfaction of being reminded of my little secret through a walkie talkie. "Preggers is at Sigma Chi." "Preggers headed down Midland..." "Someone pick up Preggers in the golf cart at SigEp." They thought they were so funny. And they were, because every night I would come home and laugh with Jonathan about these silly boys who thought they had a good joke going, when really the joke was on them!

And a couple of weeks ago, you can only imagine the satisfaction that came when I could finally say, "Hey, guys! I've got some news!"

(For the record, their new greeting is now "Hey, Leslie! You look pregnant today!" Boys will be boys.)