How soon after you get a BFP do you plan on telling your family?

GoaliesWife123 · August 2013

At first, DW and I thought that if we are lucky enough to get a BFP, we would wait until 12 weeks before telling anyone. However, my DW works in a dangerous job, and because our State does not recognize our marriage, there could be serious potential problems if she was ever hurt or God Forbid, Killed in the line of duty. Our families would create problems, we're almost certain, if they didn't know we were trying (you know, accuse me of cheating, fight over the kid). So, we thought it might be wise to tell them asap after we find out to prevent problems. What do you think?

ball.and.chain · August 2013

We initially planned on waiting until 12w, or at least until we'd had enough good ultrasounds to makes us feel semi-confident. That was before I ever got pregnant, when we were still trying to conceive via IUI, and we hadn't told them we were TTC at all. But when we moved on to IVF, we told them what was going on, and then it was too difficult not to tell immediately when I found out I was pregnant, since they knew we knew one way or the other. I should add that we are close to our families -- my wife talks to her mom or sister almost every day, and we usually see mine once a week or so. And I would have wanted them to know when I miscarried anyway, for the purpose of getting support from them.

KH826 · August 2013

We told my mom and my wife's parents this weekend that we are going to be doing IVF. They are both very supportive. Originally, we wanted to wait until we were far enough into a pregnancy before telling anyone including immediate family, but now that our parents know about IVF, we will likely tell them after the 2nd or 3rd beta. We might be able to hold out until the first u/s, but probably not. Since they will know the transfer date, etc., they will be excited and waiting for news. They are very supportive, and we are lucky. We will likely wait longer to tell our siblings, and then everyone else will probably wait until at least 12 weeks. That is the plan for now. I feel badly for my wife, since she had this dream of our first pregnancy being a huge shock to our families and getting to surprise them with the news and get to see their reactions. Our journey has taken a different turn, and we decided that we wanted them to know what we would be going through over the next couple of months with IVF. I know we will still have a joyous moment when we finally announce a pregnancy to family, but it won't be quite what my wife had always hoped for...

GoaliesWife123 · August 2013

We haven't told anyone except my Mom and her Dad that we are TTC at all. My mom has been ill so we told her in hopes it would keep her going. Unfortunately, she doesn't remember a lot of the time.

I think it is a good decision to let some people know, because support is clearly needed.

ball.and.chain · August 2013

KH826 said:

I feel badly for my wife, since she had this dream of our first pregnancy being a huge shock to our families and getting to surprise them with the news and get to see their reactions. Our journey has taken a different turn, and we decided that we wanted them to know what we would be going through over the next couple of months with IVF. I know we will still have a joyous moment when we finally announce a pregnancy to family, but it won't be quite what my wife had always hoped for...

We definitely experienced that -- we wanted to surprise them and then it wasn't as fun as we'd hoped, but they were still super excited for us. Of course now ALL the fun has been bled out of pregnancy announcements for us -- even a positive test isn't that exciting -- because we've been there without success. Every announcement is like, "OK, so I'm pregnant again and we'll see how it goes." Blah.

GoaliesWife123 · August 2013

AW what a sweet story about your Mom. I'm so sad for anyone who has had a miscarriage, regardless of when and I'm so happy we have this board, regardless of our outcomes. I think my fingers and toes have been crossed since I joined this board...there are too many reasons not to uncross everything!

trisholio · August 2013

Earlier this year we were pretty open with friends and family about TTC and we kept saying we would wait the 12 weeks to tell anyone of an actual positive HPT. But I knew that wasn't going to be the case. The first month we tried my mom called me a week later and asked if I was pregnant, uh mom it takes a little longer than that to find out. This time we haven't told anyone we are TTC again except a few close friends which also includes the KD and his wife. We are going to try and keep it that way. I am a pretty outgoing and open person, so when something is consuming your life its hard for me to not talk about it.

Ideally for us I would like to wait until at least 8 weeks to tell friends and a minimum of 12 weeks before we announce it to everyone (probably via facebook, because we live in this crazy world with social media these days)

ATXmommas · August 2013

With my first pregnancy, I told my family around 6 weeks. I only waited until 6 weeks because my mom and stepdad were visiting at 6 weeks and I thought it would be fun to be able to tell them in person. And it was! Z told her family around the time. We also told our best friends and i told my boss. Then, we went through the devastation of receiving the T18 diagnosis and terminating at 13 weeks.

With second pregnancy, we told our moms probably a week after the BFP. My mom and stepdad were happening to visit at the 6-week mark again, but it was too difficult to give it the same fanfare as the first announcement. I didn't tell the rest of my family until after our NT scan, which, thankfully, was completely normal this time. Of course we were excited to be pregnant, but we were also extremely anxious and just needed some more privacy. Waited to announce to more people after we received normal Mat21 results.

lbugher · August 2013

We'll tell our parents as soon as the doctor confirms the pregnancy. I'll allow my mother to relay the news to my large, extended Catholic family under the condition that she take the responsibility for telling them about a miscarriage should that happen. We'll probably tell our closest friends at that time, too, since a couple have already had miscarriages and will understand. I'll announce it on Facebook after 12 weeks and everything looks good.

Now if my stupid period would just start I can get this show on the road...

2MamazInSeattle · August 2013

Our first one, we texted our moms and sisters before the pee stick was dry. We told more of our inner circle once the betas were solid. And a few more after we had a heartbeat at 6w. And a few more after growth was shown at 8 w. And we posted to facebook after the Mat21 test showed all good, and we found it was a boy at 12w. We wanted to keep the gender a secret but once we knew, we just couldn't do it!

With a second tri loss, it's almost unavoidable that everyone knows - at 13w I told my team at work. We lost our baby at 16w. I actually wrote an email to everyone at work, bcc'ing the recipient list, because it was just going to be too hard to tell people over and over. We also sent a similar email to our wider circle of friends and (sigh) even posted the news on facebook. Because we had to.

Here's the upside: We had SO much love and support for our loss. I never felt alone, or like no one knew what was going on for us. One friend came over the second I called her. Another showed up the next day, with flowers and champagne, to talk about and celebrate our little boy. Honestly, it was so helpful and healing that everyone saw him as real!

Now for the one last week, our inner circle and family all knew we were doing a transfer and we did tell of our initial POAS + to our sisters and parents. We shared our first beta - with the caveat that it was low and concerning - to our inner circle via email, and then of course our sad news last Monday that it dropped. Obviously having a c/p is nothing like a 16w loss - but still it was nice that people knew why we were bummed out (and why I wasn't feeling well).

So, for our next shot, I think we are exhausted and will likely only tell sisters and parents until we get strong betas. A few more when we see a heartbeat. And honestly, because of our last loss, we "get" an early a/s at 16w, so we will wait until after that for announcing further (plus we'll have had the mat21 test by then, know gender, etc.). We definitely want to get past our loss date before widely sharing.

Agree with HBM, it's so exciting the first time and we were trusting and happy and feeling so charmed it worked! Second time was a bit of a sucker punch. So unfortunately a lot of the innocence of the joy of pregnancy gets taken from you with losses...

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