There's this guy I know, Tom. Tom Ketchke-Methy. Back before I made this podcast, I used to

make a podcast for him over at the Penn Graduate School of Education. And five years ago,

I was at a New Year's party at his house. I was big and pregnant. We were eating dinner,

and he told me the story of finding out that his wife was pregnant for the first time.

He was at C in the Navy. He was on his first big deployment. He just got married recently,

and he was super excited to make his first call home. So he gets on the phone with his wife,

and she says, hi honey, I've got news. Turns out she's pregnant. It was not planned. Tom freaks out

and hangs up on her. So Tom gets it together. He calls her back in a few minutes. He happily

becomes a dad. A stay at home dad, actually. And then two decades later, Tom gets another I've

got news call. This time it's from his daughter, who's a senior in college. She doesn't tell him

exactly what it's about, but Tom's got a hunch. She kind of gives it away when she says she's

bringing her boyfriend home to talk about something important. This is the longest shortest time

from WNYC. I'm Hillary Frank. On this show, we tell stories of kids talking about their parents,

stories of parents talking about their kids, all those family struggles that keep you awake.

Today's episode takes that mission literally. It's about a tense, life-altering,

parent-child conversation that goes down in the middle of the night. Stay with us.

Okay, just a note before we get started here. I recorded my call with Tom for this episode

over Skype back when I was doing the show all on my own without any fancy equipment.

So you might notice a few words dropping out here and there.

Anyway, Ellen drives home with her boyfriend Tim and they sit down with her mom and dad, Heidi and Tom.

So I'm going to be a 47-year-old grandpa. Did Ellen tell you that she let us know on my birthday?

No, she didn't. My birthday was September 24th and they came down and delivered the news at about

...