When to Announce Your Pregnancy
You’re pregnant! Congratulations! You are probably experiencing a flurry of emotions and questions. Among them: when to share your good news? My first time around, I was a bit more cautious and waited until about 10 weeks to tell most people. Close family knew right away and I waited until after my first ultrasound (at 6 weeks) to tell my best friend. This pregnancy, I told people much earlier. It’s not that I was any less nervous, I just couldn’t keep it in. We had been trying for a while and I wasn’t really private about that so it just seemed natural to share the news with the people close to me who knew our situation.
You’ve likely already told the baby’s father, but what about family, friends and colleagues? When (and how) to share the happy news is a very personal decision. Check out this post for some original ways to tell your family and friends. Some shout it from the rooftops as soon as the home pregnancy test turns positive. Others take a cautious approach, waiting until the second trimester or later.
Telling Early
Whether you just want to tell your mom and dad, or you want to send out a memo to all 250 employees at your job, the drive to spill the beans is strong—especially during those early days of pregnancy.
You know you’re pregnant because the stick had two lines (or said “Pregnant” if you took a digital like I did). And even if you’re already suffering from early pregnancy symptoms, like morning sickness or extreme exhaustion, you probably don’t look pregnant. Just by looking, no one can tell the miracle that’s going on inside of you. Maybe you need to tell someone, anyone, everyone just to make it all a bit more real.
Perhaps the timing of this baby wasn’t planned and you are nervous or even depressed to discover you’re pregnant. Talking about it with friends and family can give you much needed support.
Perhaps your morning sickness is so severe that you can’t function at work. Telling your boss is a necessity if you don’t want to get canned for poor performance.
Perhaps you just stink at keeping secrets.
Whatever your reason, sharing the news early on with family, friends or work folks can get you some much needed compassion, insight and joyous celebration. You may get offers of physical help, too, which are especially important if this is your second or subsequent pregnancy and you’re struggling to keep up with your kids.
Keeping Quiet
There are a few reasons to wait on sharing your good news, including the significantly decreased risk of miscarriage after the first trimester. According to the March of Dimes, one in four pregnancies end in miscarriage, many before the mom even knows she is pregnant. The risk of miscarriage is significantly reduced after a woman enters the second trimester.
Many couples chose to hold off on announcing their pregnancy because they’d rather not have to share the news of a miscarriage. If you’ve already had one or more miscarriages, you are probably even more aware of how public you would want to be with that sad news.
Another reason not to tell too early is that you can’t always control how it gets out. Maybe you want to tell your mom and dad or your siblings, but would rather that Aunt Francis, the family gossip, not get this newsflash. No matter how much you trust your confidants, pregnancy is a hard secret to guard.
Telling early also means opening yourself up to that never-ending stream of advice. Sure, you’re going to get it anyway once you’re showing, but perhaps during the first trimester, you’d rather tune the noise out and instead focus inward on you, your partner and your growing baby.
There’s no one right answer to the question of when to tell. Let your and your partner’s feelings be your guide. If it feels right to you, then it’s the right time to make your announcement.
I, myself, can't stand to keep it in. I have to announce it to everyone!
I did tell my mom, but she's my best friend, and I really needed her to get through it all.
we had a missed miscarriage about three months before we got pregnant with Brandon and we kept that to ourselves. mainly because we really didn't know what it was until I had talked to you wonderful ladies on here and then when the doctor confirmed it at my doctor's appointment in March. That made us all the more determined to make sure that every thing was okay before we told every one!
We made sure to get the pregnancies all confirmed first, and then proceeded to tell people. But we really didn't tell that many people until we got into the second trimester because we were worried that something would happen. And it seemed like I had an insurance issue with each of my pregnancies so it made things very difficult.
With Brandon I was a nervous wreck all the way until I was 22 weeks pregnant and we got the BIG u/s done and we were reassured that he was doing great! with Logan, I didn't get to see a doctor for the first time (due to the doctor's schedule) until I was about 21 weeks, so I was worried about that as well. with Marissa, I believe it was around the same time as well since I again had insurance issues. And then I had to find a clinic because the doctor's office that I called (which ended up being the OB/GYN that was on call and over saw Marissa's birth) wouldn't take me on as a patient because I was more or less a liability. But once we found out we were pregnant we told family and friends, and then when things got more relaxed and things progressed like they should we told more people.
(although if you went back and looked at my pregnancy journals for B and L, you probably couldn't tell by all that)
With # 2 we were going to keep it a secret for awhile, but I got big really fast and there was no way I could hide it - at only 6 weeks!!! Even if we hadn't told, they would've known anyway!
Next time, I really want to try to wait longer, mostly just for the fun of it!
We had such a hard time getting pg that we wanted to make sure everything was okay first. Plus, 6 months was plenty of time to get all that unwanted advice and hear "how are you feeling?" constantly.