Pregnant with DC4 - how do i 'encourage' people to be positive?

[NighteyesLovesGingerbread]

I'm nearly 8 weeks with DC4 and to be honest, even though we had decided to go for a 4th I am now feeling nervous/apprehensive about it all. we were lucky and I fell pregnant first month so I kid of feel like I haven't had time to fully get my head around it.

I am dreading having to tell people as I'm scared i'll get negative comments which, if I'm honest, will be voicing the very concerns I have at the moment.

so as not to drip feed, DH and I decided we wanted another child in our family, however I have no desire to be pregnant, go through birth and newborn again which is why I feel the way I do I think. if I could jump to DC4 being about 3yrs that would be great!

anyway, I thought I'd ask if you all had some suggestions of how to tell people to try and encourage them to say something more along the lines of 'congratulations' and less along the lines of 'WTF were you thinking?!'

The answer to that is "I was thinking How amazing it will be to have four kids!"
They may think you're a loon, but so what? I have 4 kids too

I felt exactly the same about dc3 , hate the pregnancy / first year so much as all have been non sleeping constant crying babies so I too wanted to wake up with a 2 or 3 year old !

I was just really positive when telling people, yes joke we must be mad but we always wanted more and love small age gaps . People were all much better than I expected :) congratulations op x

Congratulations! We've got 5 and it's amazing what people say. Usually people say how do you manage? I say it's a lot easier dealing with 5 well behaved kids than 2 naughty ones!! That usually shuts them up.

Having said that lots of women have confided in me that they would have loved to have more and either couldn't or their dh wouldn't agree. No one regrets the children they have only the ones they didn't have.

thank you for the congratulations

mrsdonovan its comforting to know I'm not the only one to feel this way about pregnancy!

I guess I will have to make sure I say 'we have really exciting news' or similar to try and imply that we are happy about it.

I'm feeling slightly paranoid in advance that people are going to be gossiping about me when they know - although there are quite a few 3/4 child families at school most of my friendship circle have 1 (and often say how they couldn't cope with more).

Its probably just the hormones making me feel sensitive about it.

DH has helpfully said 'look on the bright side, at least we already have a mix of genders so you wont get any "trying for a boy/girl?" comments' then 30 seconds later says 'oh wait, they'll probably demand to know why we're having another if we already have both! never mind!'

Thanks for that DH, way to cheer me up!!

I thought the same when I was pregnant with number 4 last year that people would be negative when we announced. But actually everyone I told had a positive response apart from one person...my mother in law!

I knew my exMIL would be negative, so I got the (very excited) 3DCs to tell her while I/we stood behind smiling. Even weirdo exMIL couldn't muster anything but enthusiasm in the face of the DCs excitement. It made for a much less stressful conversation and the DC thought it was great to be the bearers of such important news.

I felt slightly self conscious too. I usually said "in for a penny, in for a pound!" or "we thought we'd round out the numbers!"

I'm afraid you will still get plenty of "bet you're hoping for a else will be a bit outnumbered" so having a mix will not help you there :)

congratulations, 4 is hectic but lovely!

Pregnant here with DC3 but DH's 4th. A friend of mine is pregnant with her 5th and her mother went spare at her. Her mum thought they couldn't afford it, and we've had BIL tell DH not to have any more because of the cost.

I find insulting that people think we didnt actually look at our finances before going ahead with having a baby. We have made no secret for our desire to have a larger than average brood that it should come as a shock to people surprises me. And no, we have never once asked for help be it physical or financial.

congrats OP!!

Congratulations!

Be positive when you tell them. A happy "Great news, I am pregnant again" should get a positive response back.

If you are tentative or nervous when telling people, you are encourage more negative response.

Congratulations OP...I have four wonderful children and I am so grateful we decided to have four :)