what do you really mean? Do any of you say something to the effect of, "I have an announcement to make..." kind of thing? And what is the reaction you expect to receive?
This is just my 3rd and I've never made any sort of announcement, just told people one on one when the time seemed right.
This is just in response to the announcement at the christening. I was honestly picturing the poster making an announcement to a captive audience and wondering if people actually do that.
Re: When you guys say "announce your pregnancy"...
Formal announcements make me break out in hives (literally), lol. I hate all eyes on me.
For me, when we say we're ready to "announce" it, that means we'll start telling people, kinda one at a time over the phone, in person one-on-one (quietly, too) or in a small group, over a period of time.
Well, when we were hanging out with a bunch of friends at a barbeque we told them all at once... so, yeah, that was an announcement. It would have been more awkward to tell one person because then everyone else would have said, "What? What?" and we would have had to keep saying it. So instead we just said, "Hey guys, guess what?"
And after our ultrasound I'm sending out some emails to my out of town friends so that they don't hear it through the grapevine and feel hurt that we didn't tell them ourselves. We don't see all of them very often.
To me, announce means merely to tell.
In some group situations, it seems fine to have a big moment (e.g. a party at one's own house solely for this purpose or a family reunion when you rarely see each other). We plan on telling DH's siblings at a family dinner all at once (if we told individually, we would have to do it over the phone because word would spread too fast to tell each one in person) and at my work all of us sit in a circle once a week to share work and personal news and that is exactly when most people share.
Other times, telling people personally is fine: when you see individuals at various events, my DH's office where the proper way is to tell the boss first, at a party where you'd rather tell people one at a time--for example we have a wedding coming up and some people will not know before that (we will share with the bride beforehand, though). We don't want a "big moment" AT ALL in that setting, so we'll just quiety share with those who need to know if we don't get a chance beforehand.
Different personalities, settings and group dynamics call for different things.
I'm not going to make an "announcement". We are just waiting until 12 weeks to tell people at all.
We will probably do something fun for our parents though when we tell them...
I agree with you.. it seems strange. Some of the stories that I read about how it's this big giant announcement seems very over-the-top. I would prefer to just tell people, one on one... A big attention-grabbing event is NMS.
I especially find it strange when women make a big deal of telling their husbands. My DH and I bought a HPT when we were grocery shopping, I went home and tested, and then came out of the washroom and told him it was positive.... No streamers, no balloons.
BFP #2 ~ 4/22/2010 ~ EDD 12/29/2010 ~ Born 12/19/2010 ~ My Rainbow Baby
BFP #3 ~ 6/10/2012 ~ EDD 2/20/2013 ~ HB 100bpm @ 9w3d ~ M/C 7/11/2012
BFP #4 ~ 3/16/2013 ~ EDD 11/20/2013 ~ Born 11/17/2013 ~ Rainbow Baby #2
When we got together w/ family on Mother's Day, I announced it to everyone at once. Like pps have said, it's easier to just tell everyone rather than call individuals and have people hear it through the grapevine.
At the Mother's Day brunch, everyone was being bashful about being the first one to get food so I just said, "pregnant people first!" and went and got my plate. Everyone was like, "What?!"
Im only 4 weeks and 4 days. Is that too soon to have told ppl?
When we "announce" it will be when we post something on Facebook. We're waiting until after the first ultrasound at 8/9 weeks to tell family, we miscarried our first at 6.5 weeks and they were so disappointed for us that we don't want to put them through that again! We'll probably wait until 12 weeks to put anything on Facebook though. That's how I think of "announcing" the pregnancy.
~Lisa