When do you announce it?

Jack and Jill Put Up A Blog ask the question,  When do you announce you are pregnant?

I’m not.  This is not to be construed as an announcement of any kind, more of a recollection.

When I learned I was pregnant,  I stood in the kitchen, shaking and holding my cell phone, staring at the definite blue line nearly screaming at Lorie, “OHMYGODI’MPREGNANTOHMYGODI’MPRRREEEEEGNNNNAAAANT.”

And yes, I told Lorie before I even told Ismael.   I had called him first and insisted he come home from work.  THEN.  Right THEN.  I didn’t want to tell him over the phone.  I called Lorie while waiting for him.  He came racing in, probably thinking he was in some kind of major trouble, ready to defend himself.

I told my mother and closest friends in the following days and people at work who absolutely needed to know.   Other than that, I kept my mouth shut until I was more than 12 weeks along.

I told my students about a week before the annual DC Trip that I would not be going with them because I was going to have a baby in the fall.  I spared them the facts that I was puking every night, violently and with little warning, not sleeping at all,  and existing on a nearly caffeine free diet of yogurt, cottage cheese, and Special K Vanilla Almond.  If I had, it might have explained my totally sour moods in the previous weeks.

Ismael told no one.  Not his family, not his friends, nobody at all.

That’s right.  Proud daddy to be kept his mouth shut.

This is the way that culture can completely disrupt a  marriage.  I questioned him on a weekly basis:  Did you tell your mom?  Your sister?  Baba?  Anyone?  Hellooo????

After three weeks of this periodic barrage he told me, “You know.  We just don’t tell until the baby is here.  When Aicha (his cousin) was pregnant, nobody told me.  I saw for myself.”

This sounded like total nonsense to me, but it did explain a lot.  The previous fall when he had shared that Aicha was pregnant, he had no details.  Didn’t know when the baby was due, if it was a boy or girl, where she was having it, etc.  You know, those details that women seem to need to know.

So, yes, I told his family, big loud mouthed American that I am.  I was almost 20 weeks at that point.

Culture is a funny thing.  It can be programmed so deeply in a person that it’s nearly part of their DNA. Others are perfectly willing to let it go.  For as adaptable as Ismael has been, this is one piece that held tightly.

This topic has been on my mind all week as my friend Beth is now pregnant with their fourth child.  They did wait nearly the entire, seemingly standard 12 weeks before announcing it to the world.

Rather, her husband waited almost 12 weeks before putting it on his Facebook page:

FOR THOSE OF YOU THAT DO NOT KNOW WE ARE EXPECTING AGAIN. WE DIDN’T WANT TO SAY ANYTHING UNTIL AFTER WE FOUND OUT FROM THE ULTRASOUND. WE WILL KNOW FOR SURE IN FIVE WEEKS. THIS WILL BE OUR FOURTH CHILD. THIS NEW BUNDLE OF JOY IS A SURPRISE AND THE GOOD LORD WANTED US TO BE BLESSED WITH ANOTHER COWBOY FAN, YOU KNOW BECAUSE THE LORD LOOKS DOWN ON HIS BOYS. DUE DATE IS AROUND FIRST WEEK OF JANUARY. FYI

Then, about an hour later an email from Beth to our college girlfriends titled, “I’m going to kill Kevin…”

There’s never a right or wrong time to announce it.  Everyone decides for themselves.

Or sometimes your husband decides for you.