When CBS announced that How I Met Your Mother had been renewed for a ninth and final season, there were mixed reactions. The most important question that needed answering, however, was would we ever really meet the mother? Craig Thomas, the show’s co-creator, revealed all.

Following the announcement of How I Met Your Mother being renewed for another (and its last) season, CBS did something unusual in that they also announced that the mother we’ve all been waiting to meet will finally be revealed too.

Well, we blooming well hoped so!

Co-creator Craig Thomas admitted he was surprised that CBS felt the need to clarify this fact, suggesting that it had always been the plan for us to meet the mother of two, probably very bored by now, kids, and the wife of Ted Mosby, our beloved and amiable protagonist. In fact, Thomas went as far to say that he thinks he and his partner Carter Bays would be banned from show business if they attempted to end the series without meeting the mother — and “rightfully so.”

Thomas and Bays apparently had a few possible endings in mind for How I Met Your Mother, just in case any of the cast didn’t want to sign up for a ninth season. In fact, out of  Neil Patrick Harris, Josh Radnor, Cobie Smulders, Alyson Hannigan and Jason Segel, it was Segal, who plays Marshall Eriksen, Lily’s husband, who was supposedly most apprehensive to renew his contract for another chapter of the show.

Whilst Thomas isn’t giving anything away about how or when we’ll finally get to meet the future Mrs. Mosby, he has hinted at a different format compared to the current style adopted by How I Met Your Mother.

Thomas divulged:

That’s one of the few remaining tricks up our sleeves… It’s going to be a new way to tell the story… You’re never going to mistake a Season nine episode from one of the previous eight.

TV Guide reported that How I Met Your Mother‘s producers have formulated a “bucket list” of story-lines together. Thomas said, “there are a lot of loose ends and references and setups that we have to pay off.”

We’re looking forward to it already! As reported by Zap2it, we know the date has been set for Barney and Robin’s wedding for 25 May, 2013, and we also know that Ted meets the mother at the wedding as she plays bass guitar in the wedding band. So could season 9 be a case of “How I Met Your Father”? Or will we still see through Ted’s eyes as the couple start dating? What do you think?

How I Met Your Mother airs on Mondays 8/7c on CBS.