To ask my mum not to share my pregnancy with anyone?

Hi sweetheart, I'm so sorry you're so anxious. I had a very rough start to pregnancy with some scares so I didn't tell most people until nearer 20 weeks, most even later 😅. I never did an announcement, just told as I saw.

I will say this. You don't want lots of messages, you also said your mum told people you wanted to tell yourself. The longer this goes on the more likely this is to happen.

You will start to show more, you will have to tell work. Colleagues that need to know for risk assessment, recruitment of cover etc will find out.

Best way to avoid this is to message the essential people yourself before anyone else let's cat out of the bag.

"HI, just to let you know I'm currently pregnant with a baby due around May. It has been a hard journey to get here and talking about the pregnancy makes me very anxious. Therefore, I'd prefer not to chat about pregnancy related things at the moment. I'll let you know if that changes or if there are any important updates. Love OP x"

You can tell people you don't want to talk about it. By communicating and advocating for yourself you can be more likely to get what you want and need rather than hiding.

Are you perhaps over estimating just how much and how often people are going to want to talk to you about it?

To you it's massive news. To your mum it's exciting news. To everyone else it's just a bit of good news 🤷‍♂️

Six weeks is very very different to 20 weeks

Prioritise your MH first.
If you can get support from a professional, please do. It’s not common to feel this way, but you won’t be the first lady, and you won’t be the last.
Nobody knows or understands why you are experiencing this anxiety, which is why it’s something for you to unpack and work through in therapy. But ultimately you need to stay low stress for you & baby, even if that doesn’t look exactly like a MN pregnancy / announcement.

I was expecting you to say that it was early stage. Seeing as you’ve had your 20 week scan and presumably all is going well then I think expecting your mum to keep it secret is very odd. Maybe your mum is excited. Unless there’s a huge backstory you’re not telling us then you are definitely being unreasonable.

I think this is your life, and no-one has the right to give you a hard time about your decision. Your mum is being very selfish for pressuring you.

YABU, if you're going to swear your mum to silence for so long you shouldn't have told her at all.

Plus, for those who don't know you're riddled with anxiety, you just look like you're attention seeking and putting yourself front centre on a very common stage.

Even royal pregnancies are announced earlier than this.

What do you think is going to happen when you make the 'big announcement'?

I mean apart from having an even bigger amount of attention on you than the average pregnant woman, due to all the cloak and dagger behaviour?

Bit strange personally. You'll be showing any day now. You can't keep it secret forever.

That's going to happen whenever they find out. Unless they are specifically told not to because you can't handle it.

I accept you’re suffering with anxiety and I empathise. I think this is going to far, and you are asking your Mum to be dishonest and not share things with people she’s close to. It’s a bit controlling to be honest.

I don’t understand these replies.

OP it is your pregnancy news to share, and your decision when you share it.

I told my mum I was pregnant at 15w, but asked her not to announce to anyone else in the family/friends until my 20w scan. This is a ‘miracle’ baby for me, and i’m high risk.

My reasoning was that I was extremely anxious and wanted the ‘all clear’ on the 20w scan. Turns out my baby does have an ‘anomoly’, and I was referred to foetal medicine to confirm this. Baby is fine, but will need surgery after birth, and was traumatic to hear this at the start and I needed time to process it all before sharing with family which I did at 22w.

I am pretty sure my mum had told some people by this point, so when I told her the news after the scan she was sheepish (she was also pestering me all day on my 20w scan when I asked her not to).

In the end I think she felt bad she couldn’t keep her mouth shut for the sake of a few weeks, and I also felt really let down by her tbh.

I haven’t shared further private information regarding birth plans with her as I don’t trust her to keep quiet (i’m 33w now).

Don’t let her pressure you into something you’re not ready to share.

Why can’t your mum wait til after the scan to announce?

Look I get it, I really do. We didn’t tell anyone, including parents, I was pregnant with DD until after the 20 week scan after several losses, the last one at 20 weeks but letting people know and keeping it low key is still possible. Gently OP it will probably cause a bigger stir and reaction by keeping it completely secret.

I never do announcements anymore, too much pressure and too many memories of when I had to read them while going through hell but I’d let your mum quietly let people know, if it’s people you don’t see much they won’t be in your face about it. I’m glad you’re getting help for your anxiety.

Let your Mum tell them after your scan with the caveat that they are not to contact you about it and you don't want it mentioned by anyone.

Who’s going to be asking you questions though? You’ve said you don’t have a personal relationship with your aunt and they all live away anyway.

I do think YABU. I’m always very much about respecting the mother’s rights and wants through pregnancy first but there comes a point where you’re asking everyone to ignore the obvious and I think that’s really unfair on everyone else.

Not to mention that your mum is just excited and wants to tell someone that she’s having a grandchild and it’s a bit crap for her that she has to act like it isn’t happening.

The longer you keep it to yourself the more questions you'll get. If you genuinely want to keep it low key then the best way would be to let your mum tell people but also tell them you're anxious about and don't want to talk about it. The putting it off is making it a bigger deal not a smaller one

I never done a huge pregnancy announcement. I also managed to conceal my ever so small bump. Infact just before baby was born I was at a gig wearing my usual clothes 🙈 Most found out when my daughter arrived, albeit very early. Immediate friends and family knew pretty much right away but no one else until she was born. So it can be very easy to conceal!

I liked the privacy of it and not loads of questions etc. I do feel like your aunt etc will be slightly hurt but it’s your choice overall and a boundary that should be respected.

I had a blanket ban on any photos being shared even privately when she was born. Someone very close to me breached that and I stopped sending photos to them until she was strong enough and home. Not out of spite but at that point I had been told my daughter wasn’t going to make it, that she wouldn’t see it through the night and had an influx of long distant relatives blowing up my phone after receiving the pictures. Some I hadn’t spoken to in over 10 years.

Keep it low key by letting your mum tell people.

It does get a bit weird when someone is obviously pregnant but hasn't mentioned it. One lady at work decided not to tell anyone she was pregnant (she was huge) and we were all warned not to ask. Tbh it just created loads of gossip and speculation.

Yes YABU, please let your Mum tell her family and get excited by a new GC.