Announcing that you're expecting

The weird chap in the office has just announced that him and his weird girlfriend are expecting – bit surprised amidst all the congratulations to find that she’s only five weeks along. Now, I’m not a parent and have no intention of becoming one, but that seems pretty early to me. Is it just me?

Americans seem to announce it almost before they’ve pulled out.

Most disconcerting.

That seems rather early.

😆 @ CFH

Yes, that’s very early. After you’ve had the all-clear at the 12 week scan is normal.

Good sign that he’s shitting himself.

I always thought 3 months. Because, God forbid, of the likelihood of something going wrong.

12 weeks is the norm though you may tell grandparents earlier

People I know tend to have announced either at the 12 week point or after the 20 week scan.

My brothers psychopathic Mrs announced it at around 2 weeks, might have been earlier

I always thought 3 months. Because, God forbid, of the likelihood of something going wrong.

having recently been in the ‘God forbid’ situation I would say this, maybe even later.

We tried to keep it quiet from everyone until we’d got the 12 week all clear scan.

Didn’t work when we lost one at 11 weeks 😥 My parents happened to be staying over and got woken up at 6am by me announcing “We are expecting but we think we might be losing it. We are going to the hospital right now, you can look after MCJnr”

Even worse, the outlaws were coming up later that day to stay a few days so my mum had give my mother-in-law the bad news as we were still at the hospital. Properly shit day that was. And quite a few days afterwards.

All it took was for my Mrs to turn down a glass of wine for the cat to be out of the bag…

Definitely the 12-week marker. It’s pretty standard for a reason.

LOL @ jambo

My mums shocked reaction at the time was “I did wonder when she refused to try the seafood”!

I don’t have a problem with sharing your good news early, certainly to family and friends, never understood the 12 week thing, if you suffer a miscarriage – isn’t it better that your family and friends know so they can support you? Of course, who am I to break convention, I waited 12 weeks.

Why is he weird? (apart from the birth announcement)

12 weeks unless friends see your lush of a wife not drinking when she normally would!

I find people who announce early are first timers, people who have had a couple of miscarriages (or more 🙁 ) tend to wait a bit. Being pregnant does not always lead to a baby unfortunately.

I don’t have a problem with sharing your good news early, certainly to family and friends, never understood the 12 week thing, if you suffer a miscarriage – isn’t it better that your family and friends know so they can support you

I looked the figures up after I posted, funnily enough, and something like 80% of miscarriages occur in the first 12 weeks, a horribly sad number. 🙁 I think it must be about not wanting to have it flung in your face – I guess you’d face the grim prospect of having to tell everyone the sad news (can’t imagine how hard that would be) or run the risk of people keep asking you how the baby’s coming along. Grim beyond belief – he’s a weird chap but I wouldn’t wish that on anyone.

I find people who announce early are first timers…

That’s them.

Why is he weird?

He is just as odd as a cod. Total inability to keep anything to himself (as evidenced above), insecure, utterly unable to accept that he does anything wrong (and he does make a lot of mistakes – small thing, I know, but his spelling is awful, he once sent Angus an email starting “Hi Anus”, but ‘it’s only a spelling mistake’). Not a bad lad but sweet mother of jesus, you should hear him eat yogurt. *shudders*

Everyone os different and the idea of a “standard” date to reveal seems to be a bit daft to me – do it when you’re ready.

It’s fairly unlikely I’ll get pregnant, no matter how hard the gf and I try, but I think I would say something early as I’d rather have the support of my friends if there were problems. Just seems obvious to me.

Also

Not a bad lad but sweet mother of jesus, you should hear him eat yogurt. *shudders*

has almost made me sick with laughter!! 😆

Rachel

We told close friends and family after the first scan, then others over the next couple of weeks.

We also told close friends and family about our pre-12 week miscarriage, but didn’t particularly announce it more widely, though we almost always talk about it if it comes up, like now, as it really helps to know that it’s actually really common.

i haven’t told many people yet, and we had our 20 week scan today… oh, yeah. that’s that out of the bag then!

I remember emailing my dad a copy of the 12-week scan. He must have glanced at it briefly then emailed back wondering what the X-ray was of and what I’d broken.

But we waited to 12 weeks and it seems to be what most folks do.

so its 5 weeks since her last period.. and potentially only a 3 weeks after conception. Guess the wierd office guy is just happy about the news and fancied sharing it.
Congratulations to him and his girlfriend.

“Hi Anus”

I suspect he’s a lot sharper than you give him credit for 😆

I think it’s odd that people don’t say sooner. If there is a chance of things going wrong then surely friends, family, work etc can help minimise issues.

Intended to wait till 12 weeks but wife was showing early, started wearing sweaters etc in middle of heatwave to try and cover bump. It didn’t feel right local shop keeper/neighbour guessing and knowing and not aunties and uncles so we announced it at 8 weeks to close family/friends then the obligatory Facebook status at 12 weeks.

The idea of announcing it at work is weird. You may tell friends by why does everyone at work need orcwant to know.

I suspect he’s a lot sharper than you give him credit for

In some ways yes, in many, many ways no.

You may tell friends by why does everyone at work need orcwant to know.

We really didn’t, in the same way that we didn’t want to know they were trying, but he told us anyway.

We had an early scan at 5 weeks, perhaps this guy has too?

Told folks at this point, we figured it sensible to have the support if something went wrong. Told everyone else after 12 week scan.

Due to the manual nature of her job, the ex had to announce it almost as soon as we knew due to not being able to do certain tasks at work (nursery nurse, insurance etc) Unfortunately, this is always obvious to the staff there, and being closely linked via children’s parents at the nursery with siblings at both schools that our mums worked out, it was out to everyone before we had a chance to get over the shock.

We lost it at 12 weeks, and the support she had was amazing from friends, family and colleagues. For her, it was better to have that support. Just a shame no one supported me the same way.

My bro and his other half recently let me into their big secret at an early stage but I didn’t feel it was my place at all to talk about it to anybody else, even my missus, until they went public with it.

Because, well, just in case…

Cat is out of the bag about the bun in in the oven now.

While we’re on the subject, what’s the etiquette about cards and baby showers 🙄 and all that Americanised guff?

Maybe because I work in prenatal diagnosis and that leads to me see too many miscarriages but I’d wait until 12wks (not that we are having another).

We had an early scan

Just a thought, but maybe you having a scan was a waste of NHS resources. I suspect that it was your wife who was the only one who needed one 🙂

Id told best mate early for support should something go wrong and then family after the nucule scan. We didn’t really announce stuff as such other than to close friends. Everyone else found out as and when though the fact she was 6 months pregnant on our wedding day gave it away 🙂 #shotGunWedding

Friend of mine seriously let the cat out of the bag at a meet up.

Her insistence on absolutely alcohol free beer was almost psychopathically aggressive. Rules here allow anything with less than 0,3% to be marked as alcohol free. But she had to have zero. Que lots of googling and quizzing the poor barman.

One of the guys (who had been in the pub all day) drunkenly asked when it was due.

At which point her and her husband left and weren’t seen publically for another 6 weeks, at which point the 1st trimester announcement was made.

We later found out that they’d been trying for ~2 years…….

the americans have a good line in announcement pictures, some worht a good chuckle

never understood the 12 week thing, if you suffer a miscarriage – isn’t it better that your family and friends know so they can support you?

as pondo says first twelve weeks are statistically a worrying time. If the worst happens then unless you are going to announce the sad news to everyone you told the good news to, then you’ll get asked “how’s the pregnancy coming along” at varying stages as you meet up with people you don’t see all the time. Trust me when I say that kinda thing can knock you off your stride. Just telling close family and close friends (and anyone who needs to know at work) until things are more progressed is a good idea imo.
(we waited, but not long enough)

Everyone else found out as and when though the fact she was 6 months pregnant on our wedding day gave it away

Weird Chap is putting his wedding planning back a year because she’s now pregnant. Not that they’d set a date or anything, got engaged last spring (we knew before she did – he is compelled to tell you everything in his head).

Maybe Weird Chap just wants everyone to know he’s not as weird as all that.