July 2019 Moms

Rant: Pregnancy and Gender Announcements Ruined

My mother got engaged in August to a fantastic guy she's been dating for over 8 years. I had been TTC for about a year when we found out we were expecting. We told our parents as soon as we found out but didn't want to make any big announcements until we were out of our first trimester. We made an announcement to put on Facebook an did as soon as we got home from our 12 week appointment and had the green light that all was good and our baby was growing healthy. On that same day we received a sealed envelope containing the baby's gender. My husband and I wanted to find out together, in private but my mother wanted to interject herself so badly that she made dinner reservations for my husband and I, herself and her boyfriend and my in-laws to do it in a restaurant. Less than 12 hours after we made our announcement (at midnight on New Years Eve), my mother decided to overshadow by announcing her engagement in big bold letters. Some family and friends reached out, clearly seeing the pull for attention and asking if we were ok with it. Obviously we were not. When I told her that we were hurt by it and that she should have waited and let us enjoy announcing our pregnancy she completely turned on me. She cancelled the planned dinner and didn't speak to me for 3 weeks. In the meantime we did the reveal at my in-laws house, which was nice but bitter sweet. My husband and I also made the decision to keep the gender off of Facebook until after the baby was born. The only people who knew were close family and friends that were invited to the shower.  About a month before invitations even went out, my Godmother started calling and texting asking for the sex. I told her she would find out soon enough and that my husband and I didn't want it announced on social media. She said things like "you will be sorry if I die tomorrow not knowing" and "you're such a brat".  My mother told me to tell her and that "she's your godmother and she loves you so just tell her". And I did. Within a week she had announced the sex on Facebook. I'm livid, my husband is livid. Even after responding to so many people with "we'll announce the sex at birth, we don't want everything on social media". And even after I told her several times not to tell anyone, she still went ahead and did it. LIVID. I'm trying my best not to lose it for the sake of the baby but god knows I'm reaching the end of my rope. Am I overreacting? Is it just the hormones? How the hell do I stay calm when I want to scream all the time?

Re: Rant: Pregnancy and Gender Announcements Ruined

  • @cclyde826 I don't think you are overreacting at all! I would be pissed too! That was one of our fears about trying to tell family first before putting it on social media, is that someone wouldn't listen to our request to not say anything until we could tell everyone and post it on social media. Once we did that, it was fair game. My brother ended up telling my dad before I could, but I wasn't too mad, more annoyed. I told him he will always be called Uncle Blabbermouth from now on! 
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  • Moral of the story is that Facebook is lame and everyone should just stay off of it.
  • I'm not going to say you're overreacting, Lord knows I've had my moments this pregnancy, but when you share a secret, any secret, you always run the risk of someone spilling the beans. When you tell this person and not that person, but don't want to tell the whole world, it's tough. 

    On the "let me have my moment" front that always seems selfish to me. Your mom got engaged. Whether it's the first time or the 5th time, it's exciting! She shouldn't have to wait for you to decide when it's ok for her to share her excitement. 
  • I’d be super upset. It wasn’t theirs to share and certainly shaming you and insulting you isn’t the way to go. 

    I don’t know if this will be an ongoing issue... i think your anger probably stems from this not being the first time these people behave this way. Am I right? If so, I would call your mom and have a calm discussion. That you’ll have wants with your baby, that you realize things will change when the baby is here, but that this makes you want to hide stuff and hold it back. And that’s not good for either of you. 

    I had to have this convo with my parents. Slightly different, but made it clear that their issues wouldn’t be passed onto my kids. And that if they couldn’t grow up, they’d lose out. And that it’s not what I wanted, but I did need to protect my kids from feeling the way they made me feel. 

    Or. Just decide ahead of time what you want private and don’t even let them know there’s something to know. 
  • I’m so sorry they didn’t respect your wishes to keep the sex off of FB. I do think that’s pretty crappy! Even though by telling others you run the risk of them sharing, I assume you trusted that they would not which is why you’re so upset. I don’t blame you. Sorry that happened to you! 
  • So as far as the pregnancy announcement being ruined because your mom announced her engagement I’m gonna say that was probably a little over reaction. You aren’t the only one whose allowed to share good news for a certain period of time so you can have your “moment” uninterrupted. Even if she did it intentionally trying to “steal your thunder” so to speak I might be slightly annoyed and hurt that she’d do something like that intentionally to hurt you but not annoyed at the announcement itself. 

    The revealing the sex after you explicitly asked not to is pretty shitty.I’d certainly be hurt and upset and would absolutely tell your godmother she overstepped and betrayed your trust. I definitely think feeling hurt and upset is completely justified. That being said though I don’t think it’ll have any long term affects on your life so try not to look st anything as being “ruined”. As others have mentioned being a mom is messy and challenging and things will often go wrong so it’s a good lesson in dealing with that. You’re absolutely entitled to feel hurt and upset but letting it stress you out and affect your life isn’t good for anyone and in the grand scheme of things this really won’t matter 6 months from now when you’re in the trenches sleep deprived, cluster feeding and up to your ears in diapers I promise. 

    Id also make the decision now not to share anything about your baby that you wouldn’t want to be posted to social media by your mother and godmother if you know they have issues with boundaries. 
  • I wouldn’t be annoyed by the engagement announcement, everyone is entitled to share good news. Announcing the sex of your baby for you, would definitely extremely piss me off. I think you have every right to be upset in this situation.

    I would definitely keep any other information to yourself. If people want to give you an attitude about it, just distance yourself if that’s what needs to be done at this time. It isn’t worth the stress for you and baby to have others demanding information from you that you don’t wish to share. 
  • I think both of them were out of line. I don't think you being hurt and upset is an overreaction at all, especially if you mother has been engaged since August. I think if you called and screamed at your mom, then that was out of line, but if you were trying to let her know you were hurt by her actions and she doubled-down, then that's an indication this is an issue on her side, not yours. 

    I don't know if you get on reddit at all, but it sounds like you could use some advice from the r/justnomil folks over there in terms of how to handle the rest of your pregnancy while keeping your mother and godmother both on an information diet. A lot of those folks have mothers, or MILS, or pushy grandmothers, etc. (mother figures) who makes the pregnancy about them and their wishes, and they'll have heaps of advice (and commiseration) to help you get through.
  • Both are definitely way out of line - she got engaged in August but waited to announce 5 months and did it right after you? Come onnn. Sorry you are going through this!
    Lilypie Pregnancy tickers
  • tsa208tsa208 member
    edited February 2019
    There's a whole thread about all of us crying for no good reason. So I think you're entitled to be pretty ragey about this, an actual reason. Hope you feel better!
    Pregnancy Ticker
  • The gender reveal thing is entirely justified. In that case, I implore you to trust your gut and hold firm. Don’t let anyone pressure you the rest of your wonderful pregnancy. It’s YOUR baby and you have every right to share or keep private whatever you’d like.

    But with the engagement, people are most likely going to be more excited for you. And I’m sure you have friends independent of your mother. The friends and family you do share are probably aware of her antics. Anyone who saw it would notice how fishy it looks that she announced the same day after being engaged for months. 

    I’d brush them both off and chalk it up to a lesson learned. I’m petty so I’d probably block them both on my social media. Then they can’t see when you announce stuff to try and overshadow it AND even if they do, you won’t see it so it can’t get to you.
  • This is why I have been off Facebook for months.  Too much attention seeking and drama.  I'm sorry.  That just sucks. 
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