Fun & creative ways to announce you are pregnant

[cookinggirl]

My DH and I have not told our parents our good news yet. We are waiting until after the U/S next week. In the meantime, does anyone have any fun and creative ways that they announced their pregnancy to their family?
I am looking for some ideas.

[tryw8]

cookinggirl:

At Week 18, I had started making a 4x6 album. (We didn't get doctor's approval to spread the good news until week 19.) On the front, it had a most recent picture of my husband and I taken at a first birthday party. The next page, it said something to the effect of:
"Sometimes,
our prayers are heard
in God’s time
and
we are blessed with miracles …"

Turn the page:

" … and this is ours … "

Turn the page:

"Mark & Karen Esmeralda
are happy to inform you that
we are expanding our house
by two more feet."

Next Page:

"Coming Soon!
August 2008"

We presented it to our parents during Easter brunch. It had all the u/s images in chronological order.

Of course, the last page said, "We wish for a healthy baby and not to know the sex since this is our first."

-Karen

[cookinggirl]

tryw8 - thanks for the suggestion.

I think I figured out what I am going to do. We are having out parents over for dinner the night we plan to tell them the good news. I am going to have cloth napkins embroidered with "SURPRISE, We're pregnant". The napkins will be folded at each place setting. When we sit down to eat they will all find out.
Then they can keep the napkin as a keepsake.
What do you think?

[KatieG]

Thats a cute idea cooking
I did more of the shock factor. My parents were in the kichen mom was eating and dad was making some icecream. I said out of the blue My baby wants some icecream. and they didnt really catch it so I said it again and they said really what what and got all excited. Not as planned out as yours but they didnt expect it so it was fun.

G/L with your approach it will be a good way and you will have something to keep.

[Dexter]

The day the clinic called me to tell me the exciting news of my BFP I was out shopping with my Mum but had taken a HPT a few days prior which was BFN, so she naturally thought we weren't successful. I hadn't told her that I had infact gotten faint lines on some of the tests, didn't want to get her hopes up after so many disappointments.

When I got the call, I excused myself and told my Mum it was my agent on the phone calling so that I could call DH and tell him the news!

I waited another half hour, browsing the shops with Mum and eventually made our way into a kids clothing store to supposedly "look for a present for my nephew", when I found a baby "I Love Grandma" T Shirt and presented it to her. Unfortunately she didn't get it first off and thought I was thinking of buying it for her dog - der - but after spelling it out and saying "what about this for YOUR grandchild" she burst into tears and we had the whole shop watching our commotion! It was fun. I didn't have the patience to wait til 18 weeks, we were only 4 weeks pg when I told her!

I love the idea you've chosen. Let us know how it goes!

Dexter

[stephjim]

Those are all great ideas. But what is with the waiting until week 18 thing? Do a lot of docs actually tell their patients to wait until a certain week? I mean I understand waiting until you see a heartbeat. That is what we did for everyone but not our parents. I was just curious. There is nooooo way I could wait until 18 weeks. i am almost 15 weeks not with twins and look like I am more like twenty something. have fun with all your ideas.

[tryw8]

stephjim:

My doctor waited until week 18 until I had an amniocentesis to find out if I was carrying a baby with Down Syndrome or any other congential "defect". Regardless, I'm glad he told us to wait this long.

Karen

[baylorbear33]

We told my DH's parents in the following manner:
We typically play cards or dominos on Sunday afternoon after church, so we "doctored" two of the cards in the deck with post-its that read "We're Pregnant" and then stacked the deck so that one card would be dealt to each of them. When they picked up their hands to sort out the cards, they definitely got a surprise.

We told my parents in the following manner:
We purchased one of the special occassion ballons at the store that read "It's a Baby". We then proceeded to drive over to my parents house, left the balloon on the front door, rang the doorbell, and went and hide around the corner. It took my parents a minute to figure out what was going on, but I then came around the corner and showed them the positive HPT.

I hope this helps! It worked out great for us.

[PMApsy]

Aw, come on guys, keep that thread going! It's such a good, uplifting topic! I sure love surfing the net for announcement ideas during my 2ww!

Here are some of the ideas I saw on the net:

- Xmas cards with the ultrasound pics inside
- Mailing a letter from the baby to its relatives
- Having a family dinner and add the ultrasound pic to the framed pictures on the mantlepiece or on a wall somewhere and wait until someone notices... or putting the ultrasound pic on the mommy's belly in one of the pictures.
- Offer "grandma coffee" as a gift (available online)
- Show up to a family gathering and have your child wear a "big sister" or "big brother" t-shirt (second child announcement)
- Using a coming birthday or holiday to announce the pregnancy and incorporating it to the theme (a baby corn doll for the harvest celabrations, a pumpkin carved with "baby" on it, a Valentine's card from the baby, a "happy birthday grandma" cake, and so on!)

The napkins idea is AWESOME! I love cross-stitch, and I think I'll stitch a little project for each relative with the news and a cute baby on it or a lark or something like that, then frame it and offer it as gifts/announcement.

When I got pregnant in March, it was just before Easter. We always have a family brunch on that occasion. I had planned to ask the restaurant to make a cake and write something like "Surprise! New arrival planned on (due date)" with icing on it. But then I changed my mind and I bought cute little yellow ducks (toys) and wrote the announcement on a nice parchment with Anne Geddes pictures. I had planned to tie each letter to a toy and offer them as gifts at dessert. Unfortunately, the toys are still in a bag somewhere in the basement; I miscarried at 8 weeks.

But life goes on and I'm about to attempt FET again and things look extremely good. Given that our relatives didn't really give us appropriate support when we miscarried, we decided to tell no one about this attempt and its results (except one of my sisters and my best friend). We'll wait until the dreaded 12-weeks mark is passed before we announce it. As for my family, they live 3 hours away from us so, as much as possible, we'll wait until I'm showing before we visit them. Then we'll say nothing and we'll just enjoy the expressions on their faces when they see my baby belly after I take off my coat!

For my in-laws (they live in France, we live in Montreal), I'm hesitating between two things... the cross-stitch project and have someone take a picture of us with my baby belly, radiant smiles, and the due date added digitally on the pic with Paint. We'd simply send the picture by email to DH's parents and wait for their reaction! Or we could have a webcam conversation and, in the middle of it, I would just get up to get a glass of water... and put the big belly in front of the webcam!

ah, so many possibilities! But I think it's worth planning, after all, it doesn't happen very often in one's life!

Take care guys!

Sophie

[alreadyblessed]

I got chinese food for dinner. Before we ate, I took all the fortune cookies and took a tweezer and got out all the fortunes. Then I whited them out, and wrote "I'm pregnant" on each one. Folded them up, and stuffed them back into the cookie. It wasn't easy, but it was worth the expression on my husbands face.
For my first pregnancy, I put a cinnabun in the oven on low. The aroma was more than he could stand so I told him to go see what's cooking. "oh it's a bun". then the light went on, and he looked something like this

[foreverlove]

Hi Ladies,

I wanted to bump this up to the top.

I am looking for a unique way to tell my family I am pregnant. I am one of 9 girls and we get together every month just to catch up. Well I want to wait until I am 12 weeks to tell anyone, but am trying to come up with a fun way of telling them - does anyone have a good suggestion?