Telling the family on xmas day.... how are you doing it??

[dontsqueezetheteabag]

PG with baby #1 - will be 8 weeks on xmas day and DH and I are going away with friends over new year. I will not be able to hide the fact that I am PG from our friends while we are away so I need to tell our family on xmas day.

I have made up picture frames with a picture of a stock and a line underneath saying "Baby ..., due August 2014". I am going to wrap them and give on to each family couple after they have opened their other pressies on xmas day.

If you are planning on telling your family on xmas day how are you doing it??

I need hand holding until then so I keep my mouth shut!!!!

I'm telling family at Christmas at 9 weeks and am getting a private scan a few days before for reassurance. That's the difference for me between being able to say "so umm, I'm pregnant...but y'know it's early days, don't want to get your hopes too high" and saying "we're having a baby!!!". To be honest I'm still likely to throw in a word or too of caution even if we get a healthy scan.

Everyone's different and frankly, a positive, celebrate-what-we-have-today-not-what-might-become attitude is probably healthier than my own super-cautious approach.

Congratulations on your lovely news. I think it's a lovely idea and if I were one of your family members I would definitely cry.

Also love the photo of surprised faces idea....

Congratulations to all of you up duffers planning on sharing your news with your nearest and dearest at any point in your pregnancy at a time chosen by you. The end

What a shitty thread! poor OP!

We told our parents and PIL and aunty at Christmas (I was 13 weeks then) we put scan pictures in homemade Christmas cards saying Merry Christmas Grandma etc - they were very shocked but very pleased.

It didn't occur to me or dh we were 'making Christmas all about us' we were just thrilled, knew they would be too and it seemed like a great time to do it.

OP has already said there are no family with fertility issues etc at this small gathering.There are some real miserable arses on here!

CONGRATULATIONS OP I love your idea and I bet your family will be absolutely delighted. Good luck!

Thanks to all those who have leapt to my defense and congratulated!

For all the flamers.... Christmas is all about family, if I miscarry I need my family, I don't really care what if you think my idea is naff, I asked how everyone else was telling their family on Xmas day. Maybe you should reread the title and my op.

I'm sorry you feel got at. My posts were genuinely intended to be helpful in just checking you had thought your approach through. I did congratulate you on your pregnancy, but will again:

Congratulations

I hope you have a great Christmas. I suppose the thing I would say about 'how' is that I would't go with a set up that involves taking a photo of the moment people find out. Not with announcing my pregnancy, but announcing DD1's name (which she now loves, and did from about 10 seconds later) my mother came out with a crackingly odd comment comment and face. I'm not sure I'd want that preserved and spoiling the moment.

If you know your family would like it, I would go with the photos you have already done, but maybe just do them (together) at some point in the present opening rather than a big reveal at the end? Otherwise I'd suggest putting it in a Christmas card or something.

Have you thought about having a private early scan pre-Christmas? If it would be something you could afford, a private scan just pre-Christmas where you see a heartbeat (and a day or so under 8 weeks you should) would mean that the chances of miscarriage come down significantly and you could feel a bit more confident (though obviously the risk doesn't disappear) of things going well? You could put the photo in the frames if you wanted?

The trouble is it gets everyone else excited. We are a very, very close family on both sides, and I think our parents and siblings were even more devastated for us because we had told them in such a celebratory manner. I later learnt my very emotionally strong father had shed tears as he had been for those two days so excited for DH and me but also imagining being a grandad.

I'm sorry you feel got at but the reality is that too many people have devastating news early on, and the beauty of MN is hearing advice whether you take it or not. The likelihood is you'll be absolutely fine but if an early scan is possible I'd strongly recommend it. You may also get a photo to present! When DD1 was 7 weeks and heartbeat detected we were given a photo of 'blob' as she was consequently known during my pregnancy (we will keep that gem from her I think ).

Ours was known as tadpole for a similar reason Miracle.

It's not really that odd for threads to move away from the exact wording of the OP y'know...
I think dontsqueeze you are being unfair to the many people who have congratulated you while also pointing out some of their own experiences which have been less than positive. They'd love to return to your innocence.
Mumsnet gives you a real 360 review - it is not always a bad thing to be made to think a bit more from the experiences of others.
All the best.

dontsqueeze congratulations

Your plans for sharing the news wouldn't suit me but I think it's a really sweet idea so go ahead and do it!

My first pregnancy sadly ended in a mc. I'm really pleased that close family already knew I was pregnant as it meant they really rallied around.
It sounds to me as if you've thought it through, so go with your plans.

I think most comments are from people thinking about you, OP, and not wanting you to be disappointed if you don't get the reaction you hope for some people are just mean though

Congratulations and I wish you a lovely Christmas and a healthy pregnancy

I really haven't thought beyond whether or not we will be able to tell people (pre-scan nerves). I hadn't thought about how - now I'm worrying about that too! . No-one knows we were TTC and I don't think people were expecting us to (we've been together forever and has just taken us a long time to feel 'ready') - so I really don't know what reactions will be.

Just do what I did Plate, sort of mutter it whilst thrusting scan photo at parents, then leave them to spread the word . There really is no pressure to do the telling in a memorable way if you don't want to!

Congratulations Dontsqueeze. I'm sure your family will be thrilled. . When I was pregnant with DD3, which was something no one had expected, we told my family at a gathering for my mum's 60th. My DD1, who was about 6, just showed my mum the scan pic (we'd had an early scan after some bleeding). We had just arrived from a long journey and needed to say immediately as wine would have been thrust into my hand within seconds. We weren't trying to steal thunder (the proper celebration was the next day), but it brought so much excitement to the family, it was lovely.
It sounds very much like this is going to make Christmas really special for your close family. Enjoy it.

Haha penguins that's probably more my style.

I'll be at the in-laws at Xmas so will have to tell my side of family by phone - divorced parents and sibling so that's three separate phone calls. My sibling had baby last year and my dad was initially a bit fazed by impending grandfatherhood (has embraced it now though) so I'm rather glad I wasn't the first. I'm the 'career girl' though in his eyes and I honestly think his first reaction will be "what about your promotion prospects?".

I have just remembered my mil saying (when we said we had some big news) "oh you're not having another bairn" in a negative tone! (We only had one at the time, not like it was an army!)
She also said some mean things about my mcs so I suppose I shouldn't expect much!

What do you mean by a picture of a stock? Just trying to visualise it!

Stork!

Agree that the OP is getting a hard time here - bag humbug to the Scrooges spoiling her excitement! I'm sure she's well aware of how lucky she is and how easily things can go wrong, but that wasn't the point of her thread.

So, huge congratulations OP! We announced my second pregnancy last Christmas when I was 8 weeks. Would ideally like to have waited a while but couldn't have hidden it. We didn't make a huge deal of it with it being our second, but you should enjoy every minute and make a big fuss if that's what you want - it's so lovely when you're expecting your first (you don't have time to enjoy the second when you're chasing after a toddler!).

I actually spent Christmas last year feeling really sick and threw up my dinner...! But really looking forward to this year and my DD's first Christmas!

Fenella, there's a big difference in the way you do it to how the op is proposing. You had had a healthy 12 week scan. At that point, the chances of things going wrong drops massively so you can celebrate in the relatively secure knowledge that things will be ok. The OP will be 8 weeks at Christmas and won't have had a scan. When I had a mmc the baby died at 9 weeks. I don't think the op has been flamed by those of us urging caution. It's just the sad truth that 25% of pregnancies don't make it past 12 weeks and it makes sense to be low-key up to that point, to be on the safe side.

"As a mother with a dd, I would have been very upset to be told at the same time as anyone else , apart from DH."

Why on earth? "Very upset"?!!

I can see why someone might feel slightly miffed (not very upset) to be told of their daughter's pregnancy after other people, but "very upset" at being included in a family announcement rather than being told first? That's just bizarre. Glad my parents aren't so high maintenance!

I was so desperate to tell people before 12 weeks but my husband wouldn't let me. Even though we had scan images from 8 weeks and 10 weeks (due to threatened miscarriages) he still wanted to wait. I think he was more concerned about the Nuchal testing etc and what problems that might identify. There were situations in which a termination may have been necessary/opted for and if that was the case, I most definitely wouldn't have wanted my family to have been aware there was a pregnancy and that we had made that decision. But again, if that is something you are happy for family to be involved in then just be prepared that it may arise. My DH was very aware that various family members wouldn't be happy if we chose to terminate for medical reasons, I.e Downs Syndrome, so he wanted to avoid that whole scenario as I imagine external pressures are not helpful when making such decisions.

I agree it might be nice to get an early scan just so you know for definite you have a growing baby before you break the news. As has been said, MMC are quite common. Also, there is something more real about actually producing a scan image. I remember when I had to tell people at work and they asked how far gone I was, thinking I was going to say at least 12 weeks, but when I didn't it was a bit of an anti climax, lol. It felt like they were all a bit too nervous/scared to offer me congratulations because of how early into the pregnancy it was.

I don't think anyone here is necessarily trying to put a downer on things but the initial excitement of a pregnancy can overshadow the reality of all the things that can go wrong in the early weeks. I think the people who are just pointing it out are those who speak from experience and are just offering their views and providing the OP with another angle to consider things from.

To be fair chances of MC at 8 weeks, even without confirmation via a scan, should be well below 25% for average person. But if you've seen heartbeat at 8 weeks the odds are then strongly stacked in your favour.

I can't conceive of telling anyone pre-scan as I'm not even letting myself get excited yet, but everyone has their own approach. You hear of lots of people ringing their entire family the moment after they've seen two lines on a stick

Yup, sharing experiences of pg loss and infertility is just the same as being "Scrooge".

Oh! Stork would make sense! Haha (images of medieval stocks with parents' heads and arms in.... Bizarre!)

Anyway having had two miscarriages we didn't tell anyone until after we'd seen a heartbeat at our private 8 week scan but each to their own! We actually told family about dc2 when only 5 weeks (before mc) and cringe now at our naivety, but everything was obviously fine then and there's a great chance everything will be fine for you too, op. Congrats!

I think that sounds lovely, you know your family, they are close family, ignore the voices of doom.

I am with those who think it is terribly self indulgent naff and making Christmas Day 'all about meeeeee'. But, we're all different, if that's how your family like to do things then fine - you know your family, we don't.