Pregnancy-AIBU

[CanadaFall]

Just trying to work out if I’m being unreasonable or overly hormonal and would welcome any views….

Currently 33 weeks pregnant with my first baby. For various reasons we haven’t ‘announced’ the pregnancy on social media. On a personal level, I find gender reveals and flashy announcements a bit tacky- no offence to anyone who does this but it just wasn’t us. Equally, all pregnancies still carry risks beyond 12 weeks and to me it would be hard enough dealing with a loss or any difficulties without the added awkwardness of explaining it over and over and dealing with inevitable questions from everyone and their dog! We told our families and close friends at 14 weeks and everyone was over the moon. To be clear….I don’t mind people knowing as such I just didn’t want to go out my way broadcasting it to everyone outwith our close circle.

Fast forward to the past few weeks and I’ve had the odd random text from people who clearly know about the baby but aren’t explicitly saying anything. It comes across as ‘fishing’ for info and it’s really annoyed me. I feel like I’m having to justify my personal news and tell people by being put on the spot. Often people who I haven’t spoken to in a long time.

Example: text from an old mate who I haven’t spoken to or seen since before lockdown “we must meet up in January and catch up….” (Due date is January) Sent when I knew they were with a friend who knew about the baby. Is it just me who finds it annoying? Surely it’s in far better taste to just text and say “heard your news, congratulations” 🥴

Another example from another mate who does know about the baby but sends “how’s the pregnancy going? Have you been for anymore scans?” Sent after I’d had to have some extra growth scans. They’d clearly been told by another friend about this and again, fishing for info.

As I said, I don’t mind people knowing and if I bump into people I’m happy to tell them and chat about the baby. Afterall, you get to this stage you can’t exactly hide it!! But AIBU about the way nosy people go about things? And what do I say back to friend no 1 in the first example?

[quote CanadaFall]@dontletthemugglesgetyoudownn no I planned on just telling everyone else when baby was here safely. Also, I think half my issue is the friend who texted in the first example is someone I haven’t spoken to in over 18 months. We aren’t close and would be unlikely to talk or see each other in the near future anyway[/quote]
Not really a friend then is she? 🤷🏼‍♀️

I wouldn't think you were keeping it secret or private for any reason due to not announcing on SM. I never did.

If you haven't told someone because you haven't seen them but they have heard through the grapevine, they might want to give you an opportunity to share your news. I wouldn't want to feel like I had taken that away from someone.

I think people often don’t like saying “X told me…” in case they were meant to keep it a secret and also it can sound like they were talking about you which you might not like.

I think none of the examples you’ve given would annoy me.

I think you're overthinking and being a bit oversensitive OP. People can't do right for wrong with these things and may be actually afraid of offending by saying it to you before you'd announced it.
You've literally just said you heard your friend was getting divorced but didn't bring it up with her. It's the same thing

Fishing for information would annoy me too OP. Especially if this is someone I haven’t spoken to for 18 months. If they haven’t bothered checking in during that time (and equally I’ve not felt the need to message them in that time), why do they need to fish for info? They can either message saying they’d heard the news and how lovely for you or they can make a comment to the mutual friend to say that’s really nice for them. Some of my friends tell me about old friends and their good news, I’ll say that’s nice for them but won’t contact them because it feels a bit like crawling out of the woodwork when there’s something happy. If I saw them in person shortly after, I’d congratulate them but they aren’t a regular part of my life, why would I fish for information.

I’m 37 weeks and told very few people directly and haven’t posted on social media. We’ve said to the people who we’ve spoken to that it’s not a secret, we just haven’t made a big deal about it because it’s not a big deal to anyone else. We’ve had some people contact us and congratulate us, some haven’t I presume because they still might think we’re keeping it a secret. I managed to keep my pregnancy pretty quiet at work because I was already overweight and working from home, so I think people assumed I’d just gained more weight. I started mentioning it at work at about 27 weeks because I wanted to not just disappear for ages. People at work who I didn’t directly mention it to saw me in the last few weeks and asked if it was true that I was pregnant. I’d much rather that than fishing for info about what I’ll be doing next year.

I think you’re reaping the results of your approach to your pregnancy. You’re telling some people who probably aren’t aware of who’s in the loop and who isn’t. It sounds like those outside of the loop are trying to navigate through without upsetting you. Have to say I’d be a bit confused if I was a close enough friend to arrange a meet up with but not close enough for you to share related news with.

How you handle who you tell is up to you - your body, your baby etc - but I think it’s a bit harsh to then moan when people don’t feel they can be direct with you. Most people will be asking because they care, try to focus on the intent of their contact rather than the way they’ve done it.

You don’t sound very close to the people you’re describing as ‘friends’.

@SeasonFinale

Yes you are overthinking things. Other people's pregnancies are simply not that important to people as harsh as that sounds.

This

That’s the thing! They’re not close friends or at least not nowadays. We wouldn’t ordinarily be meeting up. They are using meeting up as a way of texting out the blue or as an excuse.

@Alfixn it’s not the same though as my friend getting divorced. In that situation, I didn’t say anything. I kept quiet as it’s not my business until she told me directly. If I was behaving how these people are I’d have texted her along the lines of “how are you hope John/Steve/Bob is well” in the way of hinting so she’d be inclined to tell me

Perhaps then I’m over sensitive or just behave in a different way to others.

If someone, friend or otherwise, hadn’t told me something I’d just presume it’s not my business to know for whatever reason. I wouldn’t think then to lift my phone and make excuses to text under the pretence of something else. I’d simply just mind my own business. Especially if this wasn’t a close friend or someone I don’t talk to regularly.

I think you need to get over yourself. You are behaving very oddly and people maybe don’t know what to say or how to act around you.

Get over yourself

You are assuming the friends that know are telling others this information. If I knew stuff about someone I don’t go telling others who know them as I would assume they know as well

So your friend who wants to meet in January may not know, the friend who asked about scans is not a mind reader, probably doesn’t know about your growth scans and is asking a genuine question

If you choose not to tell someone something then that’s your choice, but don’t assume others will either, you are not important enough for everyone to talk about you

I felt weird about telling people...like something that was happening solely to me, inside my body, is suddenly a topic for general discussion and that made me feel very uneasy.

Saying that I know its unusual to feel like that and its fairly normal news for people to pass on as people are generally excited and its seen as a nice thing to share.

And unless you swore people to secrecy I think it's a minor annoyance (moreso when people you haven't seen in a while message you and pretend they don't know) but what's the alternative? Surely it's worse if they ignore it or just think 'meh'. Sometimes life gets in the way of friendships and then they hear news that makes them think of you and get in touch.

I must admit I’m pretty shocked at some of these responses… get over myself/ you’re not Beyoncé 🤣 / no-one cares about other people’s pregnancies (fine but then why are they messaging me)/ I sound like hard work!!

All of these are a bit harsh!

@Chloemol

“you are not important enough for everyone to talk about you”

WOW lovely

In the nicest possible way, people just don’t care about your pregnancy as much as you do. If you were that close you would have personally told them, and if I hadn’t been told by the person themselves I wouldn’t bring it up unless they did.

Massively oversensitive.

You're being precious,sorry.

If my not super close friend hadn't explicitly told me, I would probably be quite sensitive about being the first to bring it up. I would worry that they didn't want me to know or more accurately, I wouldn't want them to think I was discussing their personal news with anyone else (eg the one who informed me).

Everyone just wants the best for you and pregnancy is a very exciting thing.

You are being deliberately obtuse and I think its a bit unfair that your friends/contacts dont know the unwritten rules here

In the nicest possible way, people just don’t care about your pregnancy as much as you do. If you were that close you would have personally told them, and if I hadn’t been told by the person themselves I wouldn’t bring it up unless they did.

That is what OP is saying. She is saying people she hasn’t told or talked to in quite awhile or messaging her out of the blue because they heard something from a friend that OP herself hasn’t told them yet she is being a diva for being a bit annoyed when they could just say they heard from a friend, congrats and leave it at that. If they didn’t care, they wouldn’t have message. If people are so unsure what to do, they could just as easily not say anything to OP until they saw OP or OP announced it on SM.

I wouldn’t talk about someone having growth scans and whatnot with another friend because it isn’t their business nor mine to disclose information that isn’t mines to share and I would find it weird someone telling me these things because again it wouldn’t be my business nor think that it’s is a topic that should be discussed without the person there to talk about them.

Don’t worry too much OP. It’s just a matter of preference.

Some people just get on with pregnancy and aren’t fussed or in a rush about telling everyone where there are others who feel the need to tell everyone right away and don’t mind being asked about it. Neither way is wrong and honestly people will find an issue about the way people choose to announce their own business regardless.

OP I am with you actually. People should either just congratulate you or leave it. Your private life isn't fair game and imo I think part of respecting other people's privacy is accepting things like you not mentioning your pregnancy and not sending snoopy little text messages to you about it. It's quite childish really and learning more about your pregnancy won't affect their life so why do they need to fish for it? Some posters are being really harsh on here!

You're being too sensitive about who says what and your friends may not have given the information you think they did. You aren't 5 weeks along you're 33 weeks, so just tell your friends that you're pregnant and stop over thinking every text message. Thankfully once the baby is here you'll be too busy for such nonsense behaviour, hopefully you won't have alienated people in the meantime.

As for not contacting a "friend" who got divorced, that's shitty behaviour on your part. Most people would offer support in that situation, not leave someone all alone.

As for not contacting a "friend" who got divorced, that's shitty behaviour on your part. Most people would offer support in that situation, not leave someone all alone.

How? Said friend didn’t tell OP about it so she didn’t ask them about it, leaving them to open the discussion if they wanted to. It would be shi**y to tell someone you heard they got divorced if they didn’t tell you themselves. If said friend wanted OP to know, they would have told her.

Sorry I think you are being a bit precious here - you are 33 weeks not 13! If people see you with the baby are they allowed to acknowledge it?!