Announcing Your Pregnancy

So as I get close to the end of the first trimester, I've started to think about when/how/if I'll be announcing my pregnancy. There's kind of two parts to this: work people, and social people.

Let's start with the social people, aka, friends and family. I've lived all over the place (Colorado, Seattle [twice], Austin, San Francisco, Santa Barbara, Boston [kind of...I had an apartment there for a couple years but also had an apartment in San Francisco so was never there full-time].) I tend to keep in touch with people...not everyone, but I really make an effort. The result is I have friends all over the country, whom I talk to with varying degrees of frequency.

I've been pretty open about my fertility struggles and all the interventions we've had, and also about this pregnancy when I see people or talk to/text/email them. If I talk with my friends, I tell them. I know a lot of people think you should keep the news to yourself until after the first trimester, and I did that to some extent when I was pregnant last spring, but then I had a miscarriage and I found myself telling people about the pregnancy after the fact so I could tell them about the miscarriage, and then it hit me, if you're going to tell people if you miscarry, why not tell them you are pregnant? So that's what I've done this time around. (I told a lot of people about the miscarriage because I'm just not one of those people who when friends ask "How are you?" I can just say "Fine," and change the subject. I have this urge to talk about what's going on, good or bad.)

So a lot of people already know about my pregnancy. But what about those who don't? Just because I haven't talked with someone in the past few months doesn't mean I don't consider them extremely close friends. My college roommate, for example, we go months without talking, but he's one of the few people in this world I could call anytime day or night and he'd be there for me, no matter what I needed. Anyway, do I call all these people up? (Which honestly sounds exhausting in my sickly/tired first trimester state.) Send out a mass email? (Ugh...seems so impersonal.) Post something on Facebook? (We all know how hurtful that can be to people struggling with fertility in one way or another...not sure I want to go there.)

And then, there's work. I freelance for four different companies--A, B, C and D. 

Company A, the women I work with are some of my closets friends and they know all the gory details...in fact the owner of this company went with me for my transfer/took care of me on bed rest for my IVF last January (she lives in Denver where my clinic is and my husband couldn't be with me because of school.) 

Company B is in Boston, and they know about and are cool with my pregnancy...usually when I do work for them I fly to Boston, but we're going to do some work with me in Colorado this fall, as I'm not comfortable traveling and they are being lovely and accommodating. The people who run this company are also in the friend category

Company C, the woman who runs it is this high-powered career woman who I admire greatly. She has one child (now grown) and when I told her I was doing IVF she said, "You know I love my daughter, but if I could do it again (have children), I wouldn't do it. I would tell you not to do it." She's the only person who has tried to talk me out of having kids. And yeah, I'm nervous to tell her I'm pregnant. I think she pictures me as more dedicated to my career than I really am, (I have been really dedicated in the past), but I really do want to dial back career-wise and I know she'll be respectful of that, but that's not her wish for me, you know? 

Company D is the company I do the most work for, and although I'm friendly with the people there, they are definitely professional (not friend) relationships. I've told my boss there about my pregnancy and she's told her boss...both have been extremely supportive and are good with me taking a 3 month maternity leave and then coming back, which is great. But there are about 20 people I interact with in this company on a regular basis that don't know...

In terms of work, I'm feeling a lot of hesitation telling the people who don't already know. It's weird, I thought I'd get to this point and be so excited about spreading the news, but I'm finding I'm wanting to keep it to myself for a little while longer. I'm not sure why...if I'm still scared something is going to happen? (Because as many people as I told about my miscarriage after the fact, I'm glad I didn't HAVE to tell people, you know?)

I think another factor might be I'm not sure how much I want to tell people. When I was pregnant with just one baby and told people, everyone just said, "Congratulations" and moved on. When I tell people I'm pregnant with twins I get: "Do they run in your family?" (Yes, as a matter of fact, they do.) And then I've kind of been feeling compelled to tell people I had IVF done as well. But, I don't know, I'm not sure I want to tell everyone in the world about the IVF part...can I just (truthfully) say yes to the run-in-your-family question and leave it at that?

Anyway...

What would you all do/have you done?

With telling friends?

With telling people you work with?

With telling people about fertility treatments?

Your thoughts/input are greatly appreciated!

XOXO