Telling Others You’re Pregnant

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Sharing the news that you’re expecting a new baby can be an exciting time. When I was pregnant with my first child, we gave my father-in-law a picture frame carved sayings about grandparents. We wrapped it up and gave it to him for his birthday. He was so happy!

When FishBaby FishChick2 was in utero, I staged the above photo. FishChick3 was a toddler and the known “baby of the family.” It took some people awhile to make the connection that “the baby” really wouldn’t be wearing a “Big Sister” tshirt. I’ve enjoyed being a little clever when I spread the news of an impending arrival.

Yes, yes, I have.

There are a multitude of ways to share your good news with others. And I bet you know of quite a few!

How have you shared your Big News?

:: Check out more Baby Love all week long.

:: And, no, I am not pregnant. 😉

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67 Comments

  1. I need ideas on how to surprise my BLIND father with baby #2!!! With Baby #1 my hubby and I recorded the little guy’s heartbeat using a home Doppler and I had my dad listen to it by saying it was a song i wanted him to hear 😂! We also waited until we were 12 weeks to tell them, but this time my husband wants to tell them this Monday or Tuesday when we’re 8 weeks! Thank you for any suggestions!!!

  2. For our son we bought digital picture frames for each of the grandparents. They had pictures of us from our wedding and then in the middle of them we made a picture that had baby feet and “Coming around July”. For the Great Grandmas we got them a picture frame with a picture of us and Great Grandma saying in the middle and then the same picture that was in the digital frames on the other side. It was fun. We were there when my parents opened the frame and watched as the last picture came on and it took a moment for my mom and she was very excited. 🙂

  3. With our first three children, we just came out and told everyone the exciting news. With our 4th baby, it just so happened to be April Fool’s Day when I told my mom and sister. I handed them the positive pregnancy test, and said, “This is NOT a joke! We’re having another baby!”. I loved how excited they all were…it was a precious moment I’ll never forget!:-)

  4. We had been ttc for a 2 yrs and ended up doing IVF. It worked the 1st cycle – with twins and I am currently 7 wks prego! There are NO surprises during IVF as my hubby was with my thru all my appts. I wanted ONE surprise for him so I told him our blood pregnancy test with the doc was rescheduled the day after from the date he thought. After I got the + result I ran over to the Five Below store and picked up a kiddie size soccer ball. My hubby LOVES soccer!! I left it in our back yard. We are getting a new patio/fire pit put in so when he came home I said “Let’s walk out & see the progress the contractcors made today”. We are looking at the patio outside and I asked “why is there a soccer ball out here?” and he says “They were probably playing it over their break”. I said back, “But it looks like kid size ball hun! Go pick it up”. He said “I’m not messing with their stuff!”. He TOTALLY wasn’t getting it. So I go over & pick up the ball with my back facing him & say “hun, there is a note on the ball!!” and he asks, “A NOTE!!? What?!”…so I turn around holding the soccer ball in front of me and the note I stuck to the soccer ball read “Will you play with me in 8 months Daddy” and I had a second note below it that read “ME 2!”…he was STILL perplexed! I had to finally say, “We’re pregnant…and with TWINS!”. He thought it was a joke for a few seconds and was saying “Wait….the blood test is tomorrow!!” I said, “I got you!! Surprise!” He cried and cried and couldn’t believe I pulled one over on him without him knowing. 🙂

  5. My husband and I want to get pregnant this year. He will also turn 30 in December, so it’s going to be a big year for us! I want to do something very memorable to spill the beans. I’m thinking about taking him to the top of the skyscraper in Atlanta where he proposed and telling him there. The staff there is very willing to accomodate special requests and would be willing to take pictures, set up balloons, etc. Afterwards, we could eat at the same restaurant he took me on the night of our engagement. I am the oldest child in the family, so this will be my mother’s first grandchild. Her father (my Papa) recently passed away. Im thinking about getting some balloons and telling her that we are going to send them to Papa to tell him congrats on his first great grandchild. If I don’t do that, I might leave a letter from Santa on the mantle (we’re hoping to be pregant by Christmas) addressed to my mom, which will announce my pregnancy. We shall see!

  6. For our second child, we got our first one a shirt that said:”Hey Everyone, guess what? I am going to be a big brother!” We gave it to him after we had spent the weekend at a work thing of my husband’s- our son spent the weekend with my ILs. My MIL read the shirt out loud and then paused and then said, “Is this some kind of joke?” Our sons are almost 8 years apart, apparently, she had given up on our ever having another kid!! So DS had to say, no, my mom’s having a baby!

  7. Goodness I’ve had so much fun reading everyone’s stories! Now its time to share ours…
    Baby #1 we wait til 12 weeks to tell people. So for my parents we delivered them a gift bag that was filled with diapers! My mom was so excited she screamed, jumped, & then cried. This was grandchild #11 for them! My inlaws lived out of state so we sent them an invitation that said u r officially invited to ur 2nd grandchilds birth in January! My husband was on the phone with his mom when she opened it! She cried too!

    Baby#2 we made it to 10 weeks before we told people (I show really early, it wad getting hard to hide the belly!) We showed up at my inlaws one day with our daughter wearing a “big sister” shirt. It took them awhile to notice het shirt but when they did it wad hilarious! We did the same thing for my parents. I asked my mom, “did u see Ryanne’s shirt?” And she said ya it says big sister & then thought for a minute & let out a big scream!
    We r prego with #3 right now. We’ve decided that I’m going to wear a shirt that says “eating for two” when my parents come for Thanksgiving. And for my inlaws my husband wants to invite them over for dinner & at the end of the dinner prayer he will say something about being thankful for the new baby! Our friends did it that way for their first & thought it was hilarious! For the rest of our can & friends we will just conveniently say something about it in our Christmas letter!

  8. Super fun post! We are expecting #2 and I wish I would have found this sooner!
    For #1, I put a t-shirt on our DOG that said, “I’m gonna be a big sister.” Hey, she’s pretty much one of us:)
    For #2, we told fam but then i wrote a poem and posted it on my blog.
    “It’s not trick, just a treat.
    By next spring our family will have grown by two feet.
    What’s it going to be? Go ahead and give it a whirl.
    The doc has confirmed it, we’re having a baby girl!”

  9. Our first was a HUGE surprise and we knew our families had no idea. I made a shirt for my little brother that said “I’m Going To Be An Uncle” I was so sad I was going to be so far away and couldn’t see their reactions, so I had my sister open her “birthday” package with me on the phone. As soon as she saw the shirt she started screaming! I then had her put the shirt on my little brother and video tape as my parents saw him in the shirt! Their reaction was PRICELESS!

  10. We weren’t sure how excited my in-laws would be that we were expecting a 5th child (our second together) because they don’t exactly think big families are a good thing. So anything cutesy was out. We were visiting over dinner and my husband said “oh, did S tell you what she got last month?” and my mother-in-law was like “no, what?” he said “Pregnant.” I though she was going to pass out. But she was happy for us. Eventually.

    Now for how to tell her about #6….

  11. I didn’t see this listed so sorry if it was but the other day my friend who is pregnant with her 3rd baby took a picture of a actual hamburger bun in her oven and put it on facebook she had a sign on the stove that said we have a ……then you figured the rest out ! i thought that was just awesome

  12. THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THIS!!! I found out I am currently pregnant (right at 6 weeks) and this is #3 after a suffering a miscarriage 4 years ago. EVERYONE thinks we were done having anymore kids, well so did I until last week :)~ SO needless to say I about pee’d my pants when I found out (I AM ECSTATIC!!!!) I was just online trying to find creative ways since my MIL just said the other day something about not getting anymore grandkids so she is going to throughly enjoy the 4 she has….little does she know 🙂 SO the other day I ordered 2 shirts one for my oldest that says The Biggest Sister and the one for my youngest that says The Middle Sister. My FIL is great but doesnt get it sometimes so I am so excited to see how long this takes hime to “get it”!!! LOL This was a perfect timed conversation for me!

  13. Baby 1-blurted to my parents, individually, and asked my mom not to tell yet, then let my dad ask her about me for a couple days!
    gave in-laws grandma/grandpa bibs as gifts
    Baby 2-put “big brother” shirt on the 8-month-old first child at family gatherings and let someone notice, which seemed to take forever!
    Baby 3- (a total surprise) left the test out for my husband to find on the bathroom counter which took all night!
    gave my mom the promise of a christmas gift in gift bag with the pregnancy test, which flopped b/c she did not have those 30 and 40 years ago!
    when my mother-in-law showed me where she hung the apron with handprints of my two kids, i casually pointed out where baby #3’s print could go
    Baby 4-i wrote after christmas thank-you notes to each family member from my children, husband, and self and casually mentioned the next baby (“We will enjoy playing with ___ and will share it with our new baby.” “I will enjoy choosing four charms to go on the mother necklace.”). we mailed the notes and anxiously waited for the phone calls. one of sisters said, well, i read it, but i just thought with three kids you were a bit off and made a mistake! 🙂

  14. with # 3, twentyeight years ago, I prepared a lovely Valentines dinner and fed the other two children earlier. I had written a poem in the local paper for the valentine greetings section and as I was waiting for him to read the paper, the two year old overflowed the toilet! water runnning everywhere and he finally reads the “what will simmons contrive when we are Five?” and remarks happily, Oh arent you just the nut? cleaned up the mess and finally got to enjoy our supper together. AHHH those were the days…….. thanks for bringing back memories
    our daughter and her hubby told us, by giving us a box with a pregnancy test stick in it. I of course didnt know what it was, and our teenaged son said to her, ‘ did you pee on that thing? ” it was at that moment that I started jumping up and down and crying with the realization that we were going to be Grandparents. To Twins actually!! a most precious gift from God.

  15. When my little brother was born (10 years younger than me), my family was sitting at the table for dinner one night. My dad asked my other brother if he would please open the jar of peanuts. He couldn’t b/c it was too tight, and so Dad said, “Well, then I guess you won’t be able to open the baby food jars.” Neither of us thought about it, and kept on going with dinner. A little bit later Dad said to me, “So, you didn’t ask me why your brother would NEED to open baby food jars.” I said, “Well, um, I mean, when he’s married?” I was so confused 🙂 Don’t remember exactly how I figured it out, but finally I did and was super excited!!! Thanks for all the creative ideas in the comments 🙂

  16. I mistakenly told my parents on April 1st, and they refused to believe me, LOL. But I was so excited, I never even thought about the date.

      1. My sister-in-law and husband’s twin brother decided to play a trick on us for April 1st. They told us they were pregnant and I started to believe them. Little did they know, they had a surprise on the way already! About a month and two days later they called us in the middle of the night to tell us they were pregnant and of course we didn’t believe them! So they sent us pictures of the tests!

  17. I haven’t had the best experience with this, mainly because we’re young and our kids are each 15.5 and 16 months apart, respectively.

    With #1 I casually mentioned to my mother-in-law that I was sorry to go against her advice to have a holiday baby. She jumped up and down for 5 minutes. 🙂 My mom just told me, “yeah, well that’s what happens when you don’t use birth control.” In her defense she wasn’t quite ready to be a grandma.

    With #2 we were at dinner at my in-laws and told my little sister-in-law to tell everyone that my daughter was going to be a big sister. It took everyone a minute to get it. My mom just said, “I was wondering when the next one was going to come along.” (Still not too happy about our decision not to space our children more “practically.”)

    With #3 we called everyone on the phone and got less than enthusiastic responses. Not that the in-laws weren’t excited, I think it was just not “new” news anymore. I didn’t even tell my mom, I let my dad tell her. 🙂

    Next time around I think I’ll just wait for everyone to notice the belly. 😛

        1. @Jamie, 8! Ah…and I thought I was nuts with wanting a 6th. I don’t feel so bad that I’ve received less than enthusiatic comments as well.

          I guess all that really matters is that WE are ecstatic about it.

      1. @The Prudent Homemaker,

        I just found out I’m pregnant with my 10th (just miscarried 2 months ago also) so I’m nervous about telling anyone… kind of thinking of waiting til I show, too. Not that there are at least a few who would be thrilled… it’s the ones that don’t care now that it’s #10 that I don’t want to share with. Sad, eh?

  18. BWAHAHAHA. You need an “announcement” that says this is just a post and not an announcement. 😉

    With JrMuffin 1 I did a letter. I wrote it as a child would have wrote it and signed it Jr. Muffin. My mom and I are on a woman’s message board and I knew how to change her name/picture so I did it with an old woman and changed her name to Grandma.

    With Jr. Muffin2 I did the tshirt like in pic 1 and mailed it out to grandparents and waited for hubby to get home. My daughter had been stinky for about 1 hour now but I knew he wouldnt get it until he could see the tshirt flat so I asked him to change the diaper while I fixed dinner. I was taking a long time just to cut carrots and wait while he put his work things away, took a drink, a little of this and a little of that. I kept encouraging him to change the diaper! Finally I thougt I was just going to spill the beans when he laid her down to change the diaper. HE stared at that tshirt for maybe 30 seconds like, “Is this for real?” (She was 6mos at the time)

    Boy that was one of the most memorable days of my life.

    Next time I am putting a single bun in the oven and ask hubby to take it out… we’ll see if he gets it. 😉

  19. When I was pregnant, I bought a bib that says “I love my daddy” and gave it to my husband, who immediately began to cry tears of joy. We live in NC, but both sets of our parents live within 15 minutes of each other in SC. We arranged to meet everyone at a restaurant that both parents could get to easily. We had bought a few items at a college athletic shop, including a newborn onesie. When everyone saw our bags, they wanted to see what we bought. I pulled out each item one by one, leaving the baby clothes for last. I said, “And we bought this, but we won’t need it until January” and held up the baby onesie. Amazingly, everyone instantly realized what we meant, and we had a fun evening making baby plans!

    A sister-in-law photocopied a sonogram picture onto a postcard and just mailed it out to the family, and sat back waiting on all our phone calls!

  20. With our daughter (now 3 1/2), we gave my in-laws and my parents “I love Grandma” and “I love Grandpa” bibs.

    I now am 7 months along with #2, a boy. We found out on Easter, but wanted to have the first appointment to confirm, since I wasn’t yet 4 weeks. It was so hard not to say something at Easter dinner. 🙂

    After my appointment, we dressed our daughter in a “Big Sister” shirt and made the rounds to visit my in-laws and my husband’s grandparents (something we do every week). It took them a while to notice her shirt, but everyone was very excited.

    We told my parents about this baby on the phone, since we had just come from visiting them (out of state) and wouldn’t see them in person for a while. We also broke the news that it is a boy over the phone.

  21. For our first we told everyone on Christmas. We wrapped up a grandparents photo album and had them open them as the last present. Everything went well at the in-laws, they got it right away. Not so at my parent’s. Lo and behold, a few presents before ours my parents opened a gift from my sister and BIL. I was a grandparent ornament! My sister was announcing she was pregnant too! It is just the two of us and these would be the first grandchildren. So when my mom finally opened ours after all the excitement she said, “Oh, an album for my first grandchild.” I said, “Mom, who was it from?” She still did not get it and thought that we knew about my sister and were getting a present for her baby. My dad finally said, “I think she is trying to tell us something!” She eventually got it and everyone was really excited. At the time, I was a little thrown off though! (We ended up having our babies 10 days apart!)
    With our second we did the Big Brother t-shirt thing and with our third we just told everyone. I don’t even remember how I told my family – I like to block out these uncomfortable moments :), but my husband said to the in-laws, “What are you guys doing next May, because we may need a babysitter for a few days.” It took them awhile to get it and I wanted to hide!
    I think next time we might need to do something clever by e-mail or FB!
    With the third I told my husband by changing the desktop on his computer so that it said “Daddy of Three!” It was quite a surprise for him!
    I have heard of people telling their husbands by writing it on their older kiddo’s diaper and he would see it when he was changing him. I thought that was pretty clever.

  22. I’m not a mommy yet…still a newlywed…about to hit the 3 year mark. I’m SO excited to read how people have been coming up with ideas on how to tell parents, husbands, children, family, etc.

    I have a friend who for Christmas, bought her husband a pair of shoes and inside the box placed a normal sized shoe for her husband and a “baby” shoe for the other. He was slightly confused for a quick minute and then realized what she was telling him! Of course, opening gifts you take pictures, so she was able to snap pictures and then frame the pictures later. I believe she eventually took a picture and turned it into an ornament.

    I can’t wait to see what other stories get shared! 🙂

  23. I am only 7 weeks along. But when we told our parents, we skyped with my daughter wearing a “Big Sister” shirt. My parents needed some help noticing, but my mil noticed on her own (after a few minutes).

  24. We decided that we wanted to take a trip to Europe before starting our family. The opportunity came up to go with my in-laws in February, and by May I was pregnant with our first child. As an anniversary gift for my in-laws, I made a photo album of our trip and my husband wrote a poem for it. The poem spoke of the different adventures on our trip and ended with “There are many things made possible due to this trip. This album, your gift, is one of them. The other is due January 25th.” For my parents, we gave my mom framed photos of all her grandkids with a spot filled with “Grandbaby #5 due January 25th.”

    For our second child, we recorded our then 2-year old making the announcement and posted it on our blog. Unfortunately, my in-laws didn’t listen closely enough and thought my daughter was referring to the baby in her Auntie’s belly. They didn’t get it until another family member explained it to them!

  25. With #1, we got the “I love grandma” and “I love grandpa” bibs and drove them down to my parents house. They said they had figured it out when we called and said we had something to drop off (they live an hour away).

    With #2, we actually waited until I was about 13 weeks to tell them, due to a number of reasons. I took our first ultrasoun picture and put it in a PowerPoint that said “Coming Soon!” and emailed it to them.

  26. With our first we wrapped up a bib that said I love my Grandpa for my dad. Unfortunately, my dad was sick and didn’t quite get it at first. He thought I was just giving him a bib – because he needed one. Thankfully, someone else read it and then everyone got what we were trying to say!

  27. For my first, my husband had been wanting a PlayStation 2 game console and I had been telling him for months he could have the PS2 when I got my baby. So when I found out I was pregnant I went out and bought him the PS2, wrapped it and had it waiting for him when we got home that evening (from a concert. It was really had to keep quiet for so long!). It took him several minutes to figure out why I bought him the PS2!
    A few weeks later we were going to some dinner theatre thing with my parents. We sat thru this horrible and long play knowing that we had dessert waiting back at our house. We had made a cake that said, “You are going to be grandparents”. Again, really hard to sit through the play and not say anything!
    For my second I made a onsie for the first child(who was just over a year) that said, “I’m gonna be a big brother.” When daddy got home and changed him into his pjs, that is when daddy found out! We then took a picture of child #1 wearing the onsie and sent it to family and friends. That onsie is now in the baby book!

  28. When sharing the news of the impending second child, I made a tshirt with I’m pregnant on it. We were going to our families house for a BBQ and just went about our socializing. It took the family over a hour to finally read my shirt and notice. Boy, was it funny. My husband and I got quite a few laughs out of it in the days to follow.

    🙂

  29. I don’t remember how we told about our first child, but I vividly remember for #2 — at daughter’s 1st birthday party in may, we got her a book called “I’m a big sister” and had her open it last. NOBODY GOT IT!! My FIL even said, in typical loud and obnoxious form, “well, hopefully soon you’ll have a big announcement for us.” I gave him a look, I’m sure, and said “That WAS your announcement!!”
    I felt ridiculous for the rest of the party. Talk about uncomfortable! I still to this day can fathom how none of them got it, especially since hubby read all the book titles aloud. Jeesh.

  30. I forgot to add:

    We told our 3 kids about #4 by doing the same Easter basket thing and videoing the whole thing and then put it on fb as a way of telling everyone we knew.

    We told our siblings about the baby on Easter by sending them an e-card about New Life in Christ and wrote a message about being thankful for New Life in Christ and new life in me!

    I told my blog readers about #4 by doing a “Not Me Monday” post about all the things I was not doing (throwing up, gagging several times a day, my kids asking why I was sick all the time, etc.)

  31. What a fun topic!

    #1: My folk’s were 1,000 miles away so I had my bro leave a trail of diapers with little messages on them throughout their house so they woke up and saw the diapers which said, “Hi Grandma and Grandpa”, “Make me a cradle (my dad is a carpenter)” “#1 on the way”, etc. For my in-laws, I snuck into their house with a pink and blue balloon and tied it to their favorite chairs and left a note on the table with a baby rattle next to it. It said, “Dear Grandma and Grandpa, I can’t wait to meet you in 7 months……etc.”

    #2: Telling my hubby: I learned this time how NOT to announce to my hubby. I took the test while he was at work so I planned a huge surprise. The baby was due in Nov. so I cooked all day and made an enormous Thanksgiving dinner with all the trimmings (even though it would just be the two of us and our 1.5 year old daughter eating it). I made a card with a drawing of a guy with an arrow quiver and another arrow flying into it. When my hubby got home and sat down for supper I handed him the card and immediately started taking pics of him. He not only didn’t get the card, he was really upset about the surprise pictures after a long day at work and he hardly ate any of the food because he had to go to help with Youth Group. The dinner ended with me in tears and frustration and I discovered he hates being totally caught off guard like that. He did bring me flowers after YG and we made up and rejoiced together but I learned to never go so unbelievably nuts with big news like that for him.

    #2: Both of our families were together in March at a cabin in the mountains for some snowmobiling so we put some magnets on the fridge. My in-laws are both bus drivers so I had found some school bus magnets. In one was a pic of our daughter and in the magnet driving behind it was the due date and a question mark. We waited for them to notice and it took a while and they didn’t get it right away (it takes my folks a while!)

    #3: Sent my hubby an e-mail with a pic of our second child and a caption saying, “I’m a Big Brother.” He loved the e-mail approach much better.

    #3: I wrote a poem and rolled it up into a tiny white crocheted bootie that had a ribbon I tied to it to hang on the tree as an ornament. We saw both parents on Christmas and had them open their bootie as their last Christmas gift. They saw the bootie ornament, pulled out the little rolled up paper and read, “Swinborne Baby #3, Wants to join the family tree, An unexpected blessing for us, the new little one will come in August.” They loved it!

    #3’s ultrasound: Our first ultrasound was exciting. We didn’t tell anyone the date so it would be an extra surprise. My friend in MN baked a blue cake and delivered it to my in-laws’ house out of the blue. The top said, “It’s a ……..
    They had to cut open the cake to discover the baby’s gender. Since I live in the same town as my own folks I delivered blue cupcakes to them. It really takes them a while. They both just thought I was giving them goodies as usual and had no idea what it meant. When I hinted there was some special meaning my dad thought they were St. Paddy’s day cupcakes even though they were more blue than green and St. Paddy’s day was 3 weeks past!!!

    #4: Telling Hubbby: Got a sweet card from the store about the blessings of children and new babies and gave it to him late one night.

    #4 Telling relatives: I decided to wait until the 8 week mark just for fun but it was difficult hiding my intense sickness. We thought it would be fun to tell everyone, including our children, on Easter morning. On Easter we gave my folks a tiny basket with four easter eggs in it. (We had mailed the same package to my in-laws with instructions to open on Easter. They had already guessed it must be a pregnancy announcement!) In each of the eggs was a pic of one of our kids except there was a slip of paper with the due date in the fourth egg. With the basket was a photo card, thanks to the shutterfly freebies, with pics of our kids on the front and a pic of our youngest with a Big Brother caption and a poem, “God has blessed us with another, Justy’s little sis or brother, So Jer Bear’s birthday gift will be, a week-old new Swinborne baby.” (Our 4th child is due a week before Jeremiah’s birthday in early Nov.)

    #4 Ultrasound News: Had my cake-making friend in MN deliver a bunch of pink balloons to my in-laws to announce it was a girl. We delivered a bouquet to my folks.

    #5: When my bro who is a missionary in Honduras called to tell me my parent’s were going to have a 5th grandchild, he wanted me to get it on surprising them. (Paybacks for making him do a diaper trail back in his college days with our first announcement?) So I baked a special brownie and made a really cute sign on it that said, “A Baby Brownie is on the Way” on one side. Their last name is Brown. On the other side I glued a little letter from my brother’s wife, written to my parents, saying that they had a special Anniversary Gift for my folks and the delivery would be in April. I took the brownie to my folks’ house and video-taped the whole things so I could show it to my brother later via internet. My folks, in typical fashion, did not get it at all at first. They thought it was an Anniversary Gift since their Anniversary was that week, and they thought it was a dessert-of-the-month-club thing where I would be bringing them a dessert every month until April.

  32. With our first daughter, I gave my husband a gift of little blue booties, and a little pink bib. Then we went to see my inlaws and he showed them the bag. My MIL pulled out the bib, and just thought I meant my husband was messy! With our second, my husband knew I was pretty sure we might be pregnant, so I waited until he pulled in the driveway, and then texted him a picture of the pregnancy test. He loves texting. I watched his reaction from the window. It was funny. For everyone else, we let our 2 1/2 yr old daughter tell them.

  33. So this is my first time commenting on here, and it’s going to be a doozy!

    With our first child we had both sets of parents over for dinner and gave our moms little photo albums that said “Grandma’s Brag Book” and our dads mugs that said “Grandpa” on them. Pretty standard, but everyone was excited, and my best friend called while we were having dinner and she was confused why we were having a family dinner when it wasn’t anyone’s birthday but quickly figured it out and got really excited and said “Oooh! Oooh! Ok, call me back as soon as you’re done!”. She was on pins and needles for a good 2-3 hours after that 😀

    For our second we had our daughter wear a shirt that said “Big Sister” to dinner at our families houses for Father’s Day, which was fun since that kinda had a ripple effect since not everyone saw her at the same time. We snapped some pictures of her in the “Big Sister” shirt and I did several blog posts in one day of everything we had been doing over the past few weeks and sent an email to our friends telling them we were playing blog “Where’s Waldo?” and they had to comment on the appropriate post once they found out where “Waldo” was.

    For our current pregnancy I made fortune cookies and my husband printed out several different regular fortunes and then a couple pregnancy related ones that said “Your family will grow by two feet next year” and the more obvious “Matt and Elizabeth are pregnant”. That one was fun since we had a family dinner with my side of the family and weren’t really sure who ended up with the revelatory message until they said something. It was a bit tougher with my in-laws since my MIL was on a diet and I didn’t think she’d eat her cookie (we saw them separately from my family and I like to try out new recipes, so making fortune cookies really didn’t cause any suspicions), so my husband called her to be sure she did eat it, and she called us back a few minutes later very excited about the news. To tell our friends we just took a picture of a plate of the fortune cookies with the different fortunes scattered around and I did a “recipe roundup” on my blog that included pictures of the different things I’d tried making recently, and linked the post on Facebook so our friends had to look closely to find the hidden message (not everyone did!).
    http://stockemerfamilyfun.blogspot.com/2010/06/recipe-round-up.html

    I’m not sure what we’ll do next time, but I’m excited about this post to help give me ideas!

  34. I sent my husband a cluster of 3 flowers at work, saying “congrats on #3!” when I found out I was pregnant with our third.

  35. So fun to read all these stories! Mine are all boring, by comparison. With my first, we lived far away from everyone and just called. With my second, we were in the ICU waiting room (my FIL was dying) and I started cramping and bleeding and had to go to the ER- that’s how everyone learned I was pregnant. 🙁 With this last baby, I was scheduled to have surgery in a few days and found out from the lab work! Needless to say, I HAD to tell everyone- and quickly- since they all thought I was going in for surgery within days. Come to think of it, Jessica, you guest-posted for me because I was supposed be recovering from the operation… I remember having to email you sweet ladies and tell you all that plans had changed! 🙂

  36. We lived away from both sides of the family and we wanted to wait until Thanksgiving Day to tell everyone. We couldn’t be with them, so I made a whole bunch of onesies with “I love Grandma,” “I love Uncle Jimmy,” one for each person. I told them to make sure they opened the present right before the Thanksgiving meal. They thought it was candy and were eager to enjoy the goodies.

    It totally blew them away when they opened the packages. Apparently, my father cried.

    It was awesome.

  37. For my co-workers I handed out little baggies of pink and blue jelly bellies! Picture frame for the grandparents with the due date written where the newborn picture eventually went.

  38. For our first, we took a picture of a blue and a pink onsie with our positive pregnancy test, and handed them out to family… my Dad had no idea what he was looking at- I don’t think he’d ever seen a pregnancy test before, so it was pretty funny.

    Round two, we had my son hand deliver blue and pink balloons to family all around town. It was a great way to make it personal and involve my son! (Great topic!)

  39. Sounds like you have another FishChick in your future!! Congratulations!!!! Alas, we never shared our news in a creative way. It just came out and that was that.

  40. We told our parents about our first baby (this was both sides first grandchild) by giving them a gift bag. In the gift bag was a bib that said “I love grandma and grandpa”. Some caught on real fast and took the others a few minutes, but it was fun. Both sides were so excited to use the bibs at their houses when the baby arrived.

  41. For my in laws, we wrapped a pacifier in one package and a rattle in another package and handed one package to my mother-in-law and the other to my father-in-law. My mother-in-law immediately started shouting and my father-in-law had a very puzzled look on his face. My sister-in-law said dad, they are expecting!!! This happened nearly 24 years ago! Thanks for bringing back memories!

  42. Sharing the news with family has been so much fun! With our first born we had our parents over for a nice Mother’s Day dinner and while my husband set out dessert, I handed our moms cards. Inside the card I had written, “The best give we could think to give you is your first grandchild! Happy Mother’s Day!” The best part was that his mom opened & read her card right away, my mom was talking so she didn’t open her card until my mother-in-law started jumping around saying “oh my gosh!”
    When we were expecting baby #2 I made a sweatshirt for my oldest that said “Big Brother” and he wore it to both family get-togethers on Thanksgiving. Not everyone got it right away, which made it hilarious!
    With our youngest, I used my cell phone to record the baby’s heart beat at my first appt. then I sent it to everyone…then spent the next hour on the phone with all the calls/texts back! Baby #3 also ended up being our first girl. To share that bit of news, I copied the sonogram pic and framed it in a ‘baby girl’ frame with a caption of her name. Then I wrapped it up and gave it as Christmas gifts to our mothers…priceless reactions! They didn’t even know that we had had the sonogram yet. 🙂

    Thanks for the opportunity to wander down memory lane! I’m looking forward to reading everyone’s stories!

  43. We took both sets of parents to dinner around our 1 year anniversary and gave both moms an envelope of pictures. The last picture in the pile was one from our first sonogram! They loved it. With the second child, we told them all at Thanksgiving dinner.

  44. We had a sunday lunch planned with both sides of the family and I was trying to think of all of the creative things to say to share, but my DH beat me to it, pointed at me and said, “oh, by the way, she’s got a bun in the oven.” 🙂

  45. Can’t help but wonder if this is another creative way of sharing…. If it is, we rejoice with you!

    1. @Heather, no. LOL. It’s baby week, so I’m just sharing all sorts of fun baby ideas and I thought this would be a good one.

    2. @Heather, I must say, I was thinking along the same lines. 🙂 Glad you cleared that up, although I admit, I would love to read your wisdom as a mom facing pregnancy and all else that you do!