to be furious that MIL's friend accidentally announced my pregnancy?

[mamansnet]

I'm 12 weeks pregnant. We told both sets of parents at Christmas when I was six weeks, otherwise we have been waiting for 12 weeks to tell people because I had an MMC last year.

We were with DH's parents for a week over New Year, where they had several people staying. Particularly their best friends from home, a place they left in June to move to another town an hour's flight away. No point hiding I'm pregnant because I wasn't eating pâté or drinking champagne for the whole week, both of which everybody knows I'm a very big fan of. We told everybody that we weren't announcing it yet so to please keep it quiet.

DH's best friend (and our DC1's godfather) lives half an hour away from this old town. He and his wife have been TTCing for a DC2 for some time now and have had several rounds of IVF. We were waiting for 12 weeks in particular to tell them because I know what it's like to suffer infertility (the night she had her DC I sobbed into my pillow because, while happy for them, I'd just been told after TTCing for 2 years that I would never have children naturally - although I later did). My plan was to text her tonight to let her know I was expecting, give it a few days and then tell the rest of our friends.

Except that at lunchtime today, DH's friend bumped in to one of MIL's friends from New Year, who blabbed.

Now, I completely understand that it's been 6 weeks and they will have forgotten that we weren't telling anyone yet. I can even understand that they would assume DH's close friend would have known. I can even appreciate that MIL's friends are completely ditzy and prone to memory lapses.

But I'm furious that that our friends have found out this way. They are going through a horrible time having intrusive tests, IVF and so on, and we wanted to be sure of ourselves before telling them. Also, my due date is 2 weeks before their wedding, so I probably can't attend.

DH says I'm overreacting but I believe MIL's friends owe us an apology.

Who IBU?

Why would they notice you not eating pate? Just say you have gone off it or saw how it was made. Everyone is vegetarian all of a sudden these days, you could have easily just pretended to be vege. If you really wanted to hide it you could. I managed it whilst we were staying at my in-laws for 2 weeks at about 5 weeks pregnant. They didn’t suss and they are the nosiest people I’ve ever met!

I think once people outside an immediate family know about things like this they are less bothered about keeping the secret. It doesn’t actually matter in the end either way, I think people will work out you are having a baby at some point. If your friend is going to be upset I don’t really see what difference it makes who it comes from really, there isn’t really anything you can do about it.

that Friend would go up and say "I know your friend's son".

That's just fucking weird. Maybe you're better off if they ghost you.

YABU, you told too many people to be annoyed by what has happened.

I'd be furious. I've known of friends' pregnancies before they've gone public, and wouldn't have dreamed of saying a thing to anyone else. In fact it turned out on both occasions that I was keeping the secret long after they'd told people!
During that period I had a couple of friends suspect but I still pretended the person wasn't pregnant.

If someone tells you something in confidence, it remains a confidence until you're told differently (by them).

To be honest I'd contact the blabber, tell them about the situation they put you in, and remind them that it's still not common knowledge and would they please refrain from telling people. You don't hav eto rant or be nasty, but these people need to learn what confidentiality means.

sara if the op tells the blabber about the situation, doesn’t that risk everyone knowing about the couples struggles to get pregnant? I’m sure they’d rather keep that private.

If someone outside my family told me that they were pregnant but that they were keeping it quiet for a few more weeks, I would assume, a few weeks later, that it was general knowledge.

It is just an unfortunate, unforeseen mistake that your friends will understand in time; the fact that you told your in-laws at Xmas but were waiting for 12 weeks to tell them is perfectly understandable.

Any upset you detect from them at this point is more likely to be as a consequence of them processing the news, no matter how it was delivered.

My Aunt told me (in confidence) that my cousins wife was pregnant. Having had problems previously, they were telling no-one, but my Aunt told me, and also her bf (of 50+ yrs).
I went on FB and was horrified to see that the bf had put a big post up CONGRATULTING the new Nanna to be!! As my Aunt rarely goes on FB, and no one was tagged, I immediately rang my Aunt to tell her, and after another frantic phone call, the post was deleted.
Thankfully it didn't cause too much drama, but both my Aunt, and her bf, were desperately apologetic, and were given a sharp lesson in not only Social Media etiquette, but also common courtesy!

It's not great but it wasnt done with any bad I intentions, I imagine they assumed that at that point, people would know, new year seems like an eternity ago. Speak to your friend, she can't be annoyed at you over someone else's slip up.

It’s not a secret once you’ve told someone.

YABU . You could have just kept your Councel as my Mum always says and not say ANYTHING. If they guessed then so what , waiting to tell them would have done you no harm . Some folk always feel the need to " blab" their news then be offended when friends or family meet and the news gets out before the official announcement.

It’s annoying but it’s done, I don’t think an apology will help. We struggled to conceive and if I’m honest it was easier to find out from someone else so that we could deal with it and be ready with our reaction when the happy couple told us. What you were going to do was thoughtful but not necessarily the easiest option for your friends.

the moral of the story is don't tell anyone - not even parents if you really don't want people to know and wait until after 12 weeks

YANBU- I assume when you told then at Christmas you also mentioned that it was early on in the pregnancy. If I had told someone to keep it to themselves I would expect exactly that- no time limit where the request wears off!
Seeing as these people arnt direct friends of yours, how would they know if everything was still going well with the pregnancy? If someone told me early on in their pregnancy there is no way I would go round telling people I hardly knew about it just incase something went wrong and they had to then relive it all! I would wait for the best friend to bring it up before revealing I knew.
I get why you told everyone at new years, if you arnt feeling well and the pil would have guessed then it's hard (and also not nice) to have to lie about it. Then explaining the lie later can also cause rifts in families.
Having said that my mil is a dick about gossiping personal stuff so I learnt long ago not to tell her anything (I had a total stranger come up to me yesterday saying how lovely the video she received was of me and my 1yo daughter )

I think you are being a bit unreasonable, if the secret was so important then tell no one until 12 weeks and/or make an excuse about not drinking/eating pate. A long time has passed since xmas and they may have thought you were passed the 12 week stage and everyone already knew. They may not have been aware how sensitive an issue it is for these friends. I really don't think it was meant maliciously , its just bad luck and timing.