Announcement ideas

ceclarlinetlo

Now that we have seen a heartbeat I am putting more thought into our announcements. Any one else want to share their plans or what they already did to share?

I am pretty excited about my plan for telling DHs family. We usually play a board game whenever we get together - and one of our favorites is called Anything Goes. Basically you pick two cards and act out two completely random acts at the same time and everyone tries to guess what you are doing. Some examples I can remember are "celebrating a sports victory while evolving into a new species" or "laying on a bed of nails while giving out detention slips". The things are usually so random that no one ever guesses right. My plan is to pick two cards like usual but ignore what they say and do something simple like hop on one foot or spin around. Then when everyone guesses I can say - no you guys, obviously I was spinning around while growing a human from scratch and then watch while it sinks in. 

For our instragram or Facebook announcements I like the idea to recreate this because DH just graduated from medical school this year.

RaquelB94

That's so cute!! Can't wait to hear how they react. 
For my parents, I let the news "slip" when my mom was giving me a dress she had originally bought for herself. She asked me if I wanted it because "it made me look pregnant, who would want that?" And I said "well here in a few months that's what I'm gonna be wanting" while rubbing my blump. My mom and dad had to take a min to realize what I had said haha

For the in laws I did something a little cuter. I made two photos of DS (pics below) announcing he was gonna be a big brother and I plan on using the same pictures on FB to announce to everyone else once we get our US and confirm everything. 

gonetothesea

We are going to incorporate our "Mama" and "Daddy" coke bottles that I had made when I told my Husband the news.  (I also had custom cokes made for my parents and siblings... I wrote about it a few posts back).  All of my close family knows, so this would be a Facebook announcement after our 10 week check up to hear the hearbeat.  SO. I'd like to stick with the coke theme.  It'll just be a picture of me and my husband holding them, with the caption "We finally found cokes with our names on them!" (We have uncommon names, and never could find Cokes with our name on them when that was all the rage months ago).  Hopefully people will take the time to read the bottles and take the hint.

Mylitta

Not sure about fb/public announcement. Don't know if we'll do anything. We're not very active on social media. 
For my mom, which is first, I'm making a list of grandma names. She's been thinking on what to be called as a grandma for years now... but it's not an immediate need so it's been random when she hears a name she likes.
With no lead up, I'm going to tell her that I've been waiting for a decision and I gave her time, but it's running out now and I'm putting her on a deadline. Then give her the list with the 'deadline' on the bottom. I think she'll catch on. 
I think we'll just tell the rest, nothing fancy. I'll let my mom tell my grandma when the time comes, that will take care of that. 

lindsladle15

That's so cute and clever, @Mylitta
I have no idea...DH wants to tell friends by saying, "hey, we're pregnant."  How original!  He's no help in this department

mrshuse525

@RaquelB94 I LOVE the superhero idea. So cute! 

I haven't given too much thought but I did buy this cute shirt for my daughter to wear. I figured I'd post her wearing it on Facebook to tell the masses. For our parents I have no clue. I was thinking it would be neat to tell my Dad on Father's day but I don't know if I can wait that long. Our 1st appointment is on June 8th and we leave a week in a half later for a week in Kansas for my SIL's wedding. I'm not sure if we will tell that side of the family before or after the wedding. I definitely don't want to take away from her big day. 

canavara

Was just thinking about this this morning

I just started working on mine--it's going to take a while to make and is kind of hard to explain! (Hopefully I'll have a screenshot or something eventually to share so it actually makes sense to non-engineers haha)

OH and I are both software engineers, so we want to do a nerdy reveal that focuses around that, lots of jokes about how we "pair programmed" a new "feature", how it's going to take 9 months of development, how we're QAing the baby in "staging", and how it's "shipping to production" in January.

So we're building a site together that basically looks like a code review that engineers do where they review each other's code before making it go live... typically this looks like a bunch of little comments where you make notes on progress, show screenshots of what the thing looks like to your end user, and other engineers give feedback... and usually has a bunch of automated checks and balances that your code is working correctly.

Except where we have notes on progress, it'll be notes on the baby's progress, instead of screenshots maybe the ultrasound... instead of checks that the code is working correctly, checks that the baby is growing as intended, etc etc... basically a giant nerdy hoorah.

The big joke here is that usually with code reviews, at the very end someone will leave a comment that says "ship it" which means "make it go live!" -- so we're going to have a form at the bottom that lets all of our engineer friends do just that, tell us to ship it

/nerdtalk

ceclarlinetlo

@canavara that is so nerdy I love it!!!!!

cjs260

Everyone's ideas are so great! @canavara That is nerd brilliant! Love it! 

All of our immediate families already know, but we do plan to do our social media announcement, probably around 13-14 weeks. I'm going to bake a white cake, trimmed with black and gold icing. The top will read "Patton Pending 1-8-2017. In the cake there will be sparklers and a cake topper that says "Happy New Year." Off beside the cake will be handmade party hats (black with gold glitter) that say "Mom" and "Dad" and a smaller one that has a "?" on it. I also plan to have some party poppers, noise makers, and confetti to use as additional props. I know this may sound a little over the top, but these are the kind of creative fun things I live for. 

sarahmsoda

We told our immediate families by making them all mugs with their title on it. So my dad's said Grandpa est 2017 and my father in law's said Papa again est 2017 (because he is already a Papa to our nephews). They all loved them and we're really surprised and excited!

moosette113

DH is the only one who knows so far, and I think it will stay that way until at least my first appointment next week, maybe longer depending on how it goes/what we see. Since we're in Germany and the rest of of our family is in the US, I think we'll probably just text the few immediate family members and friends and keep it under wraps until the end of first trimester. For the rest of the world, we bought this adorable onesie months ago, before we started TTC but had a timeline in mind. It says "Ich bin ein Berliner", and I'll post a picture of that with something along the lines of "If Ted Cruz could run for president, then so can our little doughnut".

TinaBelcher

For our instragram or Facebook announcements I like the idea to recreate this because DH just graduated from medical school this year.

That's so funny, I know this woman! Her son is SO cute


We'll do a pic of us holding a onesie (or hopefully 2... Tbd how the next ultrasound goes!) I bought a onesie that says "coming soon, January 2017"- I'll order a second one next week after I confirm they're both still there! Not a full body shot, just torso/ legs I think, we both prefer to be behind the camera 

ceclarlinetlo

TinaBelcher said:

For our instragram or Facebook announcements I like the idea to recreate this because DH just graduated from medical school this year.

That's so funny, I know this woman! Her son is SO cute

Ha! That is too funny! What a small world the Internet makes

gapeachrn

I have so many mixed emotions about how I'm going to announcement. On one hand I would love to announce on Fourth of July with my hubs and I spelling out baby with sparklers. (You can find anything on Pinterest.  ). On the other hand I know how it feels to see the announcement post and wish that was you (three years worth). It's such a hard choice. What are y'alls thoughts? I guess it really just comes down to that personal choice. 
We have atleast another month to make up our minds!  

cjs260

@gapeachrn Isn't that difficult to think about? *TW* I already have mixed feelings about starting to show, because I know how devastating it was to just have to see a pregnant woman after my loss. And I was very bitter towards people posting their constant (what felt like) bragging on social media. For me, I'm really going to keep it to one announcement. No ultrasound photos, no obsessive hashtags, no bump photos. Just the one announcement, and everything else will be normal posts. 

Josie3=5

We're moving over the fourth of july weekend and i thought it might be around the right time to do the announcement and announce our move. In looking how to combine the two, i found this, which i thought was cute - I'd have five boxes (DH, me, DD, DS and new bebe) with the smallest baby box on top. And then need to think about some clever words like 'moving into our new crib...' or some such nonsense - clever is eluding me right now.

Lecool

@canavara I love you. 

ceclarlinetlo

@gapeachrn @cjs260 I also have given a lot of thought to whether we should do an announcement on social media because I definitely know what it feels like from the other side. I decided that I would feel comfortable making the announcement if gave everyone who could be caught off gaurd or hurt by it a heads up that I was going to be making the announcement so they could avoid if they wanted to. 

loveinak

@canavara That's the best thing ever and so original! I love it.

nolemomma14

@Josie3=5 that is such a cute idea! We're moving this summer as well, might have to borrow it. 

We've already told our immediate family, nothing cute this time around, just told them. No one knew we were trying for a second baby yet though, so they were all still very surprised! 

egilona

cjs260 said:

For me, I'm really going to keep it to one announcement. No ultrasound photos, no obsessive hashtags, no bump photos. Just the one announcement, and everything else will be normal posts. 

This is my plan as well. I'd feel very disingenuous doing all the OTT stuff (hashtags? man). People constantly shining the social media spotlight on themselves is a pet peeve of mine (not to mention often inconsiderate to what it feels like to be on the other side of things).

TBH, I'd almost rather forgo an announcement completely, but we sort of did that with our wedding (had a planned but immediate-family-only ceremony at the courthouse and informed facebook simply by changing our relationship status) and I think a few people were hurt that the news just came out of nowhere, not to mention after the fact. Then again, just look how well that strategy worked for Alexis Bledel and Vincent Kartheiser...

We'll probably stick to something low-key, like your basic ultrasound photo, but if we want to get a little cutesy with it, I do like this:

Briala

For DS we had a picture of our dogs sitting in front of our "what to expect when your expecting" book  it was fun to do. Not sure what we will do this time probably babywearing related me wearing DS and holding an u/s picture with a time to learn how to tandem wear. 

jlinke926

We have already told our immediate family. We just bought a new house, so we made a sign and put it in the room that will be the nursery that said "Baby "X's" nursery....occupancy starts January 2017." So when we were giving the tour of the new house, they opened the door of the room and saw that sign.  That was still when we thought there was one baby. We were so shocked when we found out they were twins, we just showed them the ultrasound pics. Not sure if we will do a Facebook announcement yet. If we do, it will not be for quite some time. 

acardona1010

This was ours.

moonlady-2

So far only my hubby and his bro know...but I think we will tell our dads on Father's Day. I want to get cards that say Happy Father's Day, Grandpa! or something like that. I will be about 9 weeks. It works out perfect because Father's Day is the weekend after my first appointment.

For my mom I want to buy a onesie that says GUESS WHAT? and put it in a bag and pretend like it's a shirt I'm giving her that didn't work out (we do this kinda thing often). For DH's mom, we'll probably end up just calling her because we don't see her as much.

I really love the idea of taking a pic of family members and saying "Say Lisa's pregnant!" before snapping the pic. I'm def gonna try that with a few people (perhaps my close cousins) in the coming months.

Haven't really given any thought to the facebook announcement yet. We'll see.

LoneStar21416

These are all very cute. I haven't put that much thought into it just yet. If we do a social media reveal, I doubt we will do that until 20 weeks. I like PPs ideas of a 4th of July reveal, which I am considering doing for friends and extended family and puts me at the end of the first trimester. I also love the New Years theme idea, especially since my due date right now is 1/2. 

ThePax89

@cjs260 here is my thought, because I know the feeling well. First, people can feel free to unfollow me on social. Second, I remember while in those horrible months after my losses having a rough day after seeing an announcement. Many people in my life know about my losses and will be thrilled to see an announcement of our rainbow. 

Emma61210

my best friend and I made this onesie and this is how we told our family. We drove to everyone's house and had it folded up and told them we had to show them something we just got. It was so fun!!! 



We own a photography studio so this was our announcement

emerald24-2

Does anyone have any ideas of how to announce to a large group in person? We always have family get-togethers with all our extended family around 4th of July, which happens to coincides with the end of the first trimester for me. Our immediate family already knows, but I'm trying to think of a way to announce to our grandparents, aunts/uncles, cousins, etc.

So far the best idea we have is to get everyone together for a photo (instead take a video), and instead of saying "say cheese!" say something like "I'm pregnant!" and capture a video of everyone's reactions. While this idea is super cute... neither my family or DH's family enjoys having their photo taken, so rounding everyone together for a photo will be a pain in the ass.

So does anyone have other ideas about announcing to large groups in person besides just saying "Hey guys, we have some news........."

ashanne88

We'll probably just tell immediate family.  My parents will be visiting this weekend and there's no way I would be able to hide how sick I am.  For FB we'll probably put DS in a big brother shirt and post something with that.  With DS we posted very little about my pregnancy - I think only that we were expecting and then when he was born.  

Smiley-1980

We already told our parents on Mother's Day.  I gave each of our mother's a 2 part frame that folds shut like a book and one side had a picture of our daughter on it and the other side had a picture of the positive test.  The both cried.

Smiley-1980

When we announced our 1st pregnancy with DH's guitars, 2 big ones and a mini one in front that said we were expecting our first little hit single Jan 2013.

HairBossMama

I'm getting DS1 2 year old pictures right around the time I will be 12 weeks. So I figured might as do something for announcement while we are at it! I really like these from Pinterest. 

15caitlin

For the grandparents we had them come over and asked if they like ds new shirt which said big brother on it. We are going to do an announcement with ds holding this sign in front of the lake. 

ToBeMiller1921

I found a cute picture on Pinterest that was a tea party and thought it would be cute to have my 2 girls sitting at a cute table. The sign on the table would say "tea for three".

FancyFace82

This will be ours, only the little girl will be our 2 year old.

Meganbryn

We have already told our close friends and family we actually had our 3 year old do it through a video of her singing abut her going to be a big sister it was really cute! After the first trimester we will do one of these ideas for fb. 

Knottie1443924966

Briala said:

For DS we had a picture of our dogs sitting in front of our "what to expect when your expecting" book  it was fun to do. Not sure what we will do this time probably babywearing related me wearing DS and holding an u/s picture with a time to learn how to tandem wear. 

I love your Shiba!! What's his her name I also have a little monster his name is Humpfree 

mfrqk6

We just made this picture to give to both our parents.  I'm afraid they won't notice the shape of the shadow, what do you guys think?

brittneybea

Announcement to husband. 
We have 2 children one born in july and one born in june. I am think about giving him a bag and card that says
What do January, June, and July have in common? Open the bag and find out.


Hehe

LCartee2016

I need some ideas for announcing to a group? DH and I are waiting until his family reunion (July 4th) to announce to his extended family and I would like to do a simple but cute announcement. I'll be about 12 weeks along.