Announcements, announcements, Anouuncements! A horrible death to die! A terrible death to die! A horrible death, a terrible death, a horrible death to die! Announcements, announcements, anouuncements!
When I was a camp counselor, if anyone said the word, “announcements” you had to sing that song. And we usually had some announcements at least one meal per day, so by the second week of staff training we had all started working on our synonyms and universally declared “announcements” a banned word (along with redcoats and colonists thanks to the large British population in the staff).
So today I’m sharing how we handle the announcements that go along with pregnancy and labor, because people’s reactions usually fall into one of three categories: they’re confused, a bit miffed, or wish they could do the same. This is especially for those who feel obligated to handle sharing the news in certain ways, not knowing they have another option to take and want to be able to point to something and say, “see, I’m not the only one!”
Now this is very much an opinion, sharing my personal choices and viewpoints, so no shame or judgement if you choose to do otherwise.
A bit of back story:
I do bring a lot of emotional baggage when it comes to pregnancy–as time has gone on I’ve recognized it’s not so much about pregnancy itself, but more how I was treated by others during my first pregnancy; so I am very protective of myself when it comes to sharing that information. Also, I have had a miscarriage (it was technically a chemical pregnancy, or a miscarriage that happens so early on–2-3 weeks–that most women don’t realize they’re pregnant), so I do follow the “rule” of not sharing until after the first trimester when the chance of miscarriage decreases with majority of people.
On a lighter note: we did not publicly announce my first pregnancy at all (AKA no Facebook posts), so when we announced that we had had a BABY, it was fun to see people play “spot Rebekah’s baby bump” in my Facebook posts from when we were traveling in Europe. So it’s also fun to see how long I can go without revealing anything (I do have the advantage of not having a bump until I’m almost 20 weeks).
So when it comes to first announcing my pregnancy, I’m very particular about who knows and when. I am in no rush to share, besides with my husband, I really have no interest in telling anyone–especially in those early weeks.
The hierarchy for announcing goes like this: the baby’s father, anyone who’s life will be impacted, people who will help my sanity by knowing, people I feel obligated to tell, and then everybody else.
For me, that looks like my husband, then after symptoms start appearing my parents (because they usually end up keeping my other kids more when I’m not feeling well), and any brides whose wedding I am photographing in the early trimester (just in case I’m having symptoms on their wedding day and doing things like chewing on mint gum to settle my stomach). After that, it’s usually my sister and a close friend or two because honestly, I need an outlet to complain about pregnancy symptoms (I am very blessed in having super easy pregnancies thus far compared to most but still hasn’t stopped me from complaining about those random symptoms–pregnancy is weird y’all).
I fully believe you don’t owe anyone knowledge of your pregnancy–so unless their life is directly impacted or they’ll help my sanity, I don’t rush to share. Now I could probably delve a bit more into my mental process when it comes to sharing when I’m pregnant. It’s a bit of a game and a bit of protectiveness, which makes what I do probably appear backwards to most, but I’ve rambled enough so I’m going to leave it at that.
To labor!
So similar thing, we don’t tell people when labor starts, outside of who keeps our kids when we go to the hospital. Unless it’s taking forever and I’m super bored, I have no desire to tell people and then be getting the periodic check-in texts asking how things are going–I just don’t need that. I remember us telling our couples counselor that we don’t tell people and she was baffled at first, then she had her first baby and said, “I get it now.”
We don’t even share immediately following birth, we let ourselves enjoy labor being done, get settled in the recovery room, maybe take a nap, and then we announce the baby’s birth. The only reason I think we would share sooner is if things were not going well and we wanted to request support in the form of prayers.
Visitors
At this point, I’m not sure what where hospitals are at when it comes to visitors. But before visitation being limited, we had a certain way of doing things.
Got a guess?
If you guessed no visitors at the hospital, you’re mostly right! We planned to not have visitors at the hospital with all of our past deliveries, but we did have a visitor after each, usually one that was unplanned, and not with someone really there to see the baby. Ok I know that probably sounds nuts to most but it’s the truth and it was great.
With our first, I had to have a c-section and we were in the hospital forever it felt, so friends who lived nearby brought us food and the extended Lord of the Rings DVDs so we could have something going on at the hospital; they had recently had a baby as well, so it literally went “oh you have a newborn, cool, we have one too. So did you see that episode of Doctor Who?”
After our second, a friend whom I do not get to see often just happened to be in the area, so we invited her to swing by. Colton got us all something from the local coffee shop and we chatted about the Captain Marvel movie before she snapped a photo of the three of us–since she’s a former photographer she knew her way around my Canon.
For our third, our visit was short and happened around 2 am–one of our pastors’ wives just happened to be an L&D nurse at our hospital and I had told her to pop by for a visit whenever she could.
It broke up the postpartum routine of nurses coming to ask how much I’ve peed and adjusting to having a baby on the outside, and it just gave us a mental refresh, which is what I personally needed. And just one visit for the whole stay, that was not long, allowed me to focus on recouping and resting as much as possible–which is really hard to do.
So if having people visit makes you happy, then have them. If you, like me, think your body just went through something traumatic and you don’t want witnesses to it until you’ve somewhat stabilized, then just say no, and if anyone gives you a hard time about it, you can send them to me.
