Sharing the News

Sharing I was pregnant with Paul was nothing romantic or exciting like I had always dreamed about doing for him when the time came. I couldn’t stand waiting to take a test when he wasn’t around after I felt convinced I had to be pregnant, so I took one while he was on the couch chilling with the door to the bathroom wide open. (#marriedlife right?) When the test said “YES”… I literally couldn’t keep it a secret or hide my shock. It was a sweet moment.. but nothing fun or creative.

SO FOR OUR PARENTS…

I had some creative redemption to do. It was Easter weekend and my parents and grandparents decided to come to Mckinney to celebrate with us at Anchor, which was so special and so perfect. We had Easter lunch and dinner at our apartment with them and my sweet mother in law who lives in Mckinney near us. I got each parent an Easter basket filled with candy and one golden egg. I had written out on card stock “we”, “are”, and “pregnant”. These mommas have been begging us to make them grandmas since the day we got back from our honeymoon (lol), and it was the greatest joy of my life to tell them they were going to be one! My daddy’s reaction makes me cry every time I watch, too. There’s just nothing like a bond between daughter and daddy, I just wanted to squeeze him as tears filled his eyes.

Then it was finally time to share with ALL OF OUR STUDENTS.

Y’all, keeping this big of a secret from that many kids… so hard! There was almost a full month I couldn’t make it to Wednesday night, because of how sick I was and we had to make up something new every week as to why I couldn’t be there… it was rough! Sunday mornings on worship team in April and May was so hard, too. I would wake up at 5 AM to try to let the sickness pass before I had to be at church at 9. I never did puke on Sunday morning up on stage, but I had an escape plan ready in my mind if I had to!

We had no clue how our students would respond to the news, honestly. Like, we knew some would be stoked, but we thought some might be a little weirded out. You just never know… So we made a video announcement a couple weeks before with Jordan Stratton, like we would for any weekly video announcement at church or a Wednesday night. We staged it as if it were going to be about some fun things coming to Anchor Students over the next year… and we totally fooled them.

Their reaction, in all seriousness, made me cry so much because it was a tangible expression of the family that has been created in Anchor Students. We never could have dreamed we would have over 100 kids feel like they’re our own before ever having an actual child of our own… but that’s 1000% what it feels like. I am so thankful beyond words for the season God brought growing a family to our hearts, because that child is going to be one loved, well-babysat, and taken care of baby.

I truly feel like the luckiest person in the world to be surrounded by such an amazing community of people in the most exciting/kinda scary/transitional time of my life. Like, genuinely, I can’t even express well how much every single person in our life means to us, and how every single time we told somebody we love, their response was beyond what we could ever imagine or expect. It is such a testament to the amazing people we have the opportunity to know and do life with, and I am humbled by their love and support.

AND I am completely humbled by YOUR LOVE AND SUPPORT. Literally, I can’t say thank you enough to your overwhelming response of announcing baby Morrison. I literally was just in shock and crying pregnant tears for hours. Your DM’s, your comments, your emails… every single one was read. I had to give up responding to each of you individually, because Instagram made me. No, like really… it stopped letting me reply to people because it was too much at once. HA. But, know that I love you all so much and have read each of your comments and cried a lot.

You have extended a kindness and generosity beyond what I could have ever hoped this community on The Cake could have been, and I just truly am so humbled and so thankful.

xoxo- Han