Unexpectedly pregnant; mother making Facebook announcement

[CoddledAsAMommet]

Am unexpectedly pregnant with number 4: others are 12, 9 and 7. It's been rather a lot to take in especially as I've had some health problems which could be made worse by pregnancy hormones.

Am now 11 weeks- had a dating scan at 10 weeks as had only just realised what was up! As this is baby no4 I have no stomach muscles left, and am already showing quite a bit. We decided to tell the children and grandparents last night as they'll all guess anyway and didn't want someone in e playground to ask and our own children not know....

All 3 sets of grandparents asked not to say anything yet as only 11 weeks and not had 12 week scan. Pretty basic, you'd think? Only I woke up this morning to a Facebook announcement by my mother. Thankfully she's not tagged me but all mutual friends and family could see. She eventually took it down after I phoned her, told her to take it down and put the phone down on her- took another 4 or 5 hours though. I've had to deactivate my account so no one who's seen can post on my wall.

I've just found out mother-in-law's been telling people too.

I can't fathom this. They may be excited but I'm not yet; it will come but am still struggling to co e to terms with a huge life change. I think it's beyond disrespectful and downright bloody rude and can't see how we can get past this- I'm so hurt they could be so unkind just to be the first to share the news. I'd not even told my sister- she found out on bloody FB.

How do I deal with this?

Be absolutely candid with them about how upset you are about them being so indiscreet. The bloody cheek of it! And after you'd spelled out in words of one syllable about how you wanted this to be confidential for the moment.

At least now, you know what you can and can't share with them. I wouldn't want to share another effing thing with either of them from now on.

I'd be sorely tempted to do some very pointed vaguebooking about blabbermouths. it would be childish I admit, but oh so satisfying

Congratulations

They are totally totally out of order not to respect your privacy.

Shut them out of your life for a bit and wait for them to grovel.

I guess they were just beyond excited - but still ...

Congratulations!

If I was you I would go bat shit on the pair of them. How bloody dare they!

If that was me I'd go nc for awhile.

I can't express how much this would annoy me. There are people who will tell you that you shouldn't tell anyone at all if you want to keep a secret but they are your parents and you should be able to trust them with confidential info so you can rely on them for support.
Tell them how upset you are. They have forced you to reveal you are pregnant before you wanted to / were ready too. They have also stolen the joy of you breaking your own good news.
Congratulations.

Thank you all for understanding. We live quite close to my mother and step-mother ( who as far as I know has respected our wishes) so we see them quite often. Once the children knew of course we had to tell them as my 3 can't keep secrets and they shouldn't have to keep this to themselves. PIL obviously had to know at the same time for fairness.

DM has a history of making things all about her and I NEVER share emotions/feelings with her as she'd either a) tell everyone or b) use it against me later. I should have known better than to tell her but in all honesty, if you've been asked not to pass on news and given reasons why, then why would you? I feel really let down. I've not even had an apology.

I think I do need to be really clear with her what she's done, but this will be harder with MIL as they're not local and DH is quite protective of her.

Instead of our children and parents knowing, and giving us time to have the scan and get used to the whole idea, we now have the whole bloody world knowing.

What a nasty piece of work she sounds. Why do you still deal with her? I'd send an email saying that you won't be discussing any more private information with her regarding this pregnancy or anything else. And then just refuse to discuss.

Oh, all the usual reasons. She's my mother. The kids like her. She can be kind.... You know, the usual. She's often a pain but it's the whole, 'but that's just what she's like' argument is hard to battle against when it's all you've ever heard.

Yet another thing that's turned out to be all about her.

Be clear now how p**d off you are and tell everyone not to announce your birth on f/book until you have. Add this to texts at the time if you need to.
You could always be mean and tell her you'll not let her know when the baby arrives as you are worried she will steal your thunder (again)! I'm sure she would be horrified if she found out she had a new grandchild via f book.

I'm so sorry. My nan told everyone the sex of my baby on dc2 before I had a chance to and that was bad enough.

You must be so pissed.

Oh I think definitely make it clear that, as you can't trust them, your DM and DMIL will be the LAST to know of the birth.

And do it. Really. Have baby, phone other family members, post on FB, then phone them.

Reap what they sowed!

Oh, and your DH - um no, it's your pregnant wife you are protective of. Not the woman that's just broken both your confidence and really upset her.

I'd be telling them that as you specifically told them not to say anything, you will not be sharing any more details if the pregnancy with them and they should not expect you to.

I agree with Bruno- they've proven that they cannot be trusted, so will be last to know about the birth.

There's been no sign of DM (she has to drive past our house home from work) or text/phone call. I'm guessing my poor sister's had to deal with her and she's somewhere feeling aggrieved at the tone of the text I sent telling her to take the FB post down.
It's not about having the glory of me being first to announce the new baby- I can't imagine I'll put anything on FB at all until it's born! It's just about needing space which we've now been denied. I probably post twice a year so am pretty private!

My mum and exp's parents did this too when i was 7 weeks! Someone congratulated me on my facebook wall so i PMed them and said thank you but i was surprised they knew and they told me exp's parents had told her (and she wasnt a close friend of theirs so goodness knows who else they told. My mum announced it to her whole family (huge) at a family do.

I was really upset. When it came to 20 week scan we decided to find out the sex but not tell anyone that we did so we had at least something that was just 'our' secret that no-one else knew.

Joysmum- I like your wording. Not aggressive but to the point and clear that it's their fault, not me being horrid. Thanks.

I would be furious if this had happened to me!!!

well, as someone who's had more early MCs than I care to mention, I would be bloody livid (though as both DM and MIL know this, there's no way on God's earth they would have done this).

Joysmum's response sounds good, and a lot more diplomatic than I'd be tempted to be!

I can totally relate to this. My mil posted updates about my dh health , post-op , including the photos she took of him, whilst recovering. Need I to say , him and I were not too pleased !
I think that generation just doesn't get it, putting something on FB these days is akin to announcing it on a market square with a megaphone ! Nothing is private, once on the internet ! I'm fighting a loosing battle with mine!
Congratulations on new baby!