DH talked to SS9 tonight as usual. Everything was good and SS is so excited to see us in 3 weeks. About an hour after the call, BM emails DH requesting a change in the visitation schedule for February 2022 to accomodate SS' basketball schedule, which we received today; we are supposed to have SS for President's weekend every year per the court order. This works out better for us because my due date falls over President's weekend, so if baby came that weekend, SS would have likely been staying with my parents that weekend anyway. 

DH and I talked it over and we decided to tell BM about the pregnancy now and loop it into the conversation about changing visitation. It's not like we could ignore that email for 3 weeks until we told SS the news and I felt it was better to get ahead of it now, rather than deal with the fallout later. DH wanted to make it clear that he is not eager to change what is court ordered, since granting flexibility with BM always bites us, but that due to this extenuating circumstance, it works better for everyone involved this year. So DH called BM on the phone and explained. BM was shocked. GF was visibly/audibly upset (I heard crying). BM barely said anything about the pregnancy/baby and immediately went back to the scheduling details. DH made it clear that we are telling SS about the baby in person at Christmas and he requested that they not say anything; they said they won't. DH said that BM may be terrible in just about every way, but she generally keeps her word about that kind of stuff. I am hoping he is right, since usually, BM cannot be trusted. 

So after discussing scheduling details, BM offered us "like time" during BM's spring break this year, which was surprising. DH proposed the same number of overnights with the same exchange times as President's weekend to occur over spring break to serve as make-up time and BM accepted. BM then went on to offer additional days over spring break to use as "flex days;" basically we take time over BM's spring break as an advance on our summer visitation and then flex/reduce our visitation that number of days in the summer to accomodate SS' sports. BM thought this would create less conflict with summer scheduling. DH declined the additional days over spring break because he knows that taking any sort of visitation "in advance" will come back to bite us later on down the road and will only make scheduling summer visitation more complicated/high conflict. DH and BM will schedule summer visitation when the time comes. So DH sent all of this information with a detailed outline of the proposed schedule changes/dates/times to BM via email and DH made it clear, in writing, that this "swap" will not impact any future court ordered visitation and BM cannot come back during our spring break in 2023 and demand half, since we took part of hers as make-up time. BM agreed to the proposed changes to the dates and times and confirmed that this swap won't interfere with or change any future visitations. BM thanked DH for letting her know about the news, congratulated us, and said that "SS will be so excited to have a sibling," which is oddly nice for BM. 

So far so good. I am on guard waiting for the other shoe to drop, but like DH said, BM really doesn't have anything to communicate with us about prior to Christmas break and BM made it clear tonight that Christmas visitation is set in stone, so hopefully our baby news will just fade into the background for a while. Then after Christmas, since we won't be seeing SS in February, we have very little to discuss until spring break which is end of March. BM did ask DH if our hospital had visiting protocols for SS to come meet his sister; DH said "No visitors," truthfully blaming COVID restrictions, but also knowing that I don't want to see BM, GF, or SS during that time. Fingers crossed that BM is actually being civil and this whole thing will not blow up exponentially in our faces.