by Caitlin Fletcher

STA senior Morgan Benè held a Hershey’s bar in her hands. She looked at the letters. The “r” on the Hershey’s bar was crossed out and in it’s place was written the word “or.” She looked again at the Hershey’s bar her sister, Ryan Verstraete, had given her and read, “he or she, what will it be?”

“When I first saw the Hershey bar the first thing that went through my mind was that she was pregnant, but I didn’t want to say it and be wrong,” Benè said.

Benè then looked at her brothers and they affirmed what she believed before they all yelled out that she was pregnant.

“I was like ‘oh my gosh!’ You’re pregnant!” Benè recalled.

Benè said her family sat and talked about it for a while after her sister had told them using the Hershey’s bar.

“I was 14 when I found out and I wasn’t like ‘Oh, great I’m going to be an aunt!’” Benè said. “It was more like my sister is pregnant and she’s going to be a mom so I’m excited!”

The delivery

The night before Benè’s nephew, Beau Verstraete, was born she was at her house with her family and her sister, Ryan was there as well.

“She started having the contraction at my house that night when she was over,” Benè said. “They were timing the span between each contraction so they would know when to go to the hospital.”

According to Benè, Ryan ended up going to the hospital in the middle of the night after having the contractions at Benè’s house.

“The next morning we got up and went to the hospital and we were probably there for about two hours,” Benè said. “My mom was actually out of town when my sister went into labor, so she got there right as [Ryan] was having the baby, like literally five minutes.”

Once the family was present at the hospital and Benè’s nephew, Beau, had been born it was now time for Benè to see her nephew.

“Before then it hadn’t really hit me that I was going to be an aunt,” Benè said. “I think it really hit me when I first held Beau. Before then I hadn’t seen him or really thought of him as a human being that would grow up into what he is now. He’s such a little person!”

Once it hit Benè that she was an aunt she automatically liked the idea.

“I already had a friend who had two nephews, so I thought it was really cool,” Benè said.

 Babysitter Benè

Now, Benè no longer only has one nephew, she has a niece as well, Isla Verstraete.

“There is also another nephew on the way, so I’m really excited,” Benè said. “This time it’s my brother’s kid though.”

She sees her niece and nephew about six times a month and babysits frequently.

“Over the summer of 2011 I babysat them every weekday for a month,” Benè said. “They were much younger then and we went to the park basically everyday.”

Now, Beau is four and Isla is one and a half.

“We watch movies a lot,” Benè said. “For a while Beau was obsessed with Cars, so I basically know every word to that movie. We play a lot of board games and Beau and I sing Taylor Swift together.”

“And they take lots of pictures,” STA senior Kelli Strader said. “I’ve babysat them with her before and whenever she walked in the door they were like, ‘Aunt Mo!’”

According to Strader, Benè doesn’t like babies, but she loves her niece and nephew and little kids.

“They are so excited whenever she shows up, it’s adorable,” Strader said. “They’re also really friendly kids, I was there for like twenty minutes then Isla walked over and sat down right in my lap.”

Benè is used to being an aunt, and she is really glad that she is.

“We have a lot of fun together,” Benè said. “They’re really cool kids.”