The plan was to wait 12 weeks to tell people that I was pregnant, at least until we had the first scan that would give us the all clear, however we didn’t expect me to show so soon.
The first people I told were my mum and my dad. I told mum straight away pretty much only because I wanted company when I had to go to an appointment out of town. Mum was thrilled – especially because none of my family ever thought I would want to have kids. Dad said his usual disinterested ‘good on you.’ But my mum has a problem with keeping her mouth shut. Much to my disapproval she pushed me into telling my brother and sister. Of course, she had already told them as I discovered from my siblings but I guess she wanted me to officially ‘tell’ them. They were also very excited.
After that, we had to tell my partners parents. They were particularly excited as it was to be the first grandchild. His mum then told all her friends and the rest of her family, regardless of me telling her that we’re trying to keep it to ourselves for a while.
Then came my best friend. This, I was terrified of. She had been trying to conceive with her partner for the past 3 months and had wanted a baby for years before hand. Then I come along, not trying, no immediate plans and bam! Pregas. I always felt like I was stepping on her toes with my life. Every time she planned a new life experience like building a house or moving in with her boyfriend, I seemed to beat her to it. I didn’t do it on purpose, it just always happened that way. So now I had to go squash her dream one more time and tell her I was pregnant before she was. She took it better then I thought and was very supportive and happy for me. 6 months into my pregnancy I was happy to hear that she fell pregnant!
Work was the hardest to hide my pregnancy from. I ended up having to tell my department manager and the office manager so I could explain all my absences from work. They were thrilled of course (the clucky kind) and surprisingly kept the secret well. But then I started showing. I didn’t put on weight anywhere but my belly and boy was my belly growing FAST, so it was getting pretty hard to hide. My work pants were getting tighter and pretty soon I was using an elastic band to be able to do my button up.
As I’ve said before, my work mates are complete alcoholics so when Friday nights rolled round I had to make excuses as to why I didn’t want a wine in the afternoon and why I couldn’t go to the pub after work with everyone. Clearly I was also an alcoholic because it quickly started rumours that I was pregnant and that’s why I wasn’t drinking. I went to the pub with them a couple of times and ordered a lemon, lime, bitters, pretending it had vodka in it (which by the way our usual bartender was shocked when I said no to the vodka) but apparently I wasn’t fooling anyone. So 11 weeks rolled by, I was fat and sick of squeezing into my pants and I gave in.
I first told my boss who generally doesn’t show much emotion, but I was surprised to see he was extremely happy for me and even gave me a hug. Then I told my assistant who was baby-crazy and she cried. Then I reluctantly sent a bulk email to the rest of the office… and then hid in my little office. I hate full on attention – like when people sing the birthday song to you (shudders), so I was dreading the bombardment that I knew I would get. The congratulations and unwanted cuddles seemed to last all bloody day.
Me and my partner decided to take a quick holiday while I could still get around without waddling, so we booked a trip to Melbourne when I was 12 weeks pregnant. This was the perfect time to announce my pregnancy to the rest of the world. We took a cute announcement photo, put a post on Facebook and left on our holiday!
It was our first time in Melbourne and we basically just ate our way through all the restaurants and walked around until old pregas feet were sore. I could finally wear clothes that showed my belly, maxi dresses and stretchy clothes were my best friend! My belly was pretty prominent but I kept forgetting I was pregnant until people reminded me. I still remember getting on a bus to go back to the airport and the bus driver jokingly said ‘I was told we were picking up 2, not 2 and a half’. I didn’t get the joke at the time, I thought maybe he was referring to my partners height. It wasn’t until I told my partner about it later on when he explained to me that he was probably talking about the growing baby in my belly. (Der!)
The holiday was defiantly a good idea. It will probably be the last holiday we will have in a long while.
Secret Mummy's Business 