# Creative Ways to Annouce you're Pregnant?



## Ell-Bell

DH and I are TTC #1 right now. We haven't told any of our family that we are trying. They have been waiting years for grandkids! My DH is an only child and I am the oldest and only one even close in my family. They will be extatic when we do become pregnant.

I'm trying to think of creative ways to tell them. My in-laws live in another state, so we will be announcing over the phone, by email, or mail (or on the phone as they open their mail!). My family is closer and we'd be able to tell them face to face.

So far I was thinking of getting t-shirts made that said, "Grandpa Sam" and "Grandma Cindy" and folding them in a box so that only the "Sam" and "Cindy" showed. Then wehn they unfolded them they'd get the surprise!

My dad and I love to play board games, so I thought we could incorporate it into a game of trivia or pictionary or something.

Just wondering if anyone else is doing (or has done) anything fun to announce their pregnancy?


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## valeria_vi

My parents live overseas and I couldn't wait to send them something, so I called them up. My dad picked up the phone and I said "hi! I'm calling to let you know that you're not just a father any more. Now you're a grandfather too."

For my in-laws we gave them a gift of an empty picture frame. Instead of a picture it has a white sheet of paper that says "this piture frame is empty right now, but this will be corrected some time in late May - early June".


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## Spark

Hey, Maybe you'll come join our Dec Due Date group!

Here's a thread we had on breaking the news! Fun creative ideas!
http://www.mothering.com/discussions...d.php?t=266090


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## mom2emerson

My in-laws did not know we were TTC and assumed they would never be grandparents. We have often given them tickets to Hockey Games, Concerts, Theater and the such as gifts for holidays bdays etc. For Father's Day last year we gave them a box which on the outside said "Please save the date: (with my EDD)" They assumed it was a ticket for something and when they opened the box found my Preg Test stick with a big + staring at them. It took them a few seconds to figure it out but they were stunned and thrilled to say the least!


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## mrspeeper

We bought our moms bouquets of roses and I made rose cards out of vellum and cardstock, and wrote a poem that ended with the surprise...it went over pretty well! Both Grandmas were speechless and had tears after reading their cards. The poor Grandpas just figured it out after a few minutes of tears and hugs...


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## erth mama

We went over to my folks house, just for a regular dinner and in the middle of everyone chopping and cooking i handed my parents a very plain wrapped present and said " oh I almost forgot, i have something for you guys" and the opened it up and inside was a pair of newborn booties. My Dad didn't get it right away and my Mom had to say " Omigod they're having a baby!" They freaked out! So happy. They had no idea we were even planning on having children at all.


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## IfMamaAintHappy

With Grace, I sent my mom a bouquet of flowers, by way of a friend of hers, with the note "Looking forward to meeting you in January! Love, Baby H*****.

With Lily, I sent my mom a huge bouquet of pink and blue balloons to work (she was an elementary school principal at the time) and a blue and a pink balloon to my dad's work. The note attached was "What do you think about an East Coast Christmas this year?" since baby would be too small to travel to Illinois to visit at Christmas.

With this one, I sent a big fruit basket, and signed the note "With love from the Peach, the Plum, the Apricot, and the little Pumpkin" (my mom's mother called me The Peach and my brother The Pear as nicknames growing up, and she gave Grace and Lily their little fruit nicknames before she died a year ago. Since Im due in October, the pumpkin was the logical nickname for this one!)


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## memory maker

when I got pregnant with dd we sent blue and pink flowers to our parents with a card that read
Boy or girl
which will it be
we will find out
in 2003

they really liked that


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## CandyApple

Quote:


Originally Posted by *erth mama*
I handed my parents a very plain wrapped present and said " oh I almost forgot, i have something for you guys" and the opened it up and inside was a pair of newborn booties. My Dad didn't get it right away and my Mom had to say " Omigod they're having a baby!" They freaked out! So happy. They had no idea we were even planning on having children at all.

We did the same thing with the little booties, only at Christmas, and had a very similar reaction from both my parents. Its been a fun family memory, and my mom still keeps the booties on her dresser.

For our second baby, we had my son ask my mom to read him "the new baby", and she got tears in her eyes right away.


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## henhao

We met up with my parents in January for dinner. DH had wrapped a picture frame in xmas paper and we told my parents we had forgotten to give them this last xmas gift (very common in my family).

Inside was a pic frame that said "baby" on it. DH had placed a post it note inside that said "Photo coming August 2005." It was a cool way to tell them.

For my out-of-state in laws, we just called them.

For other friends, I had a hoot just blurting it out and watching their shocked faces. I stunned on talkative friend into complete silence. =)

For me, having fun was more fun than being original. =)

hee hee

henhao


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## paniscus

We told everyone in early November so since it was around the holidays we emailed my mom and MIL a "Christmas Wish List" (they ask for one every year and we normally just say we don't know, whatever, etc.) It had things on it like crib, stroller, diapers, etc. My FIL didn't get it but everyone else got it right away.

My MIL doesn't check her email regularly so we called and told her we sent her an email but weren't sure if it went through so could she check it. So we were on the phone with her when she found out and it makes me cry just thinking of her reaction - it was so precious.

My FIL sent out an email to 90+ relatives and friends the next day and my mom was on the phone until after midnight that night so we didn't really tell anyone else - the grandparents took care of that for us :LOL Then we told our friends the following week and put it in a Christmas newsletter that goes out in our Christmas cards.

Good Luck (and have fun!) TTC


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## ryleeee

My BIL and SIL told my MIL and FIL by putting a newborn diaper in a small box with a card at christmas and dropped it off on their steps.


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## littleteapot

The first time we found out just before the December holidays, and MIL had asked us on multiple occassions "what we wanted" for xmas. DH called her up and said, "How about a cradle?" (we family bed, btw!)

This time, well... see my website: www.summerstorms.ca


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## Taedareth

littleteapot - your website is breathtaking!! thanks for sharing your beautiful wedding and baby/maternity pics =) you're tremendously creative


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## littleteapot

Aww, thank you so much! I really appreciate that.


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## erikaa

we did something similar to your tshirt idea. i bought some fabric paint and some little onesies and for each family member painted "I heart Grandma" or "I heart my Uncle" on a seperate onsie. we wrapped each one and presented them at christmas, but made everyone open them at the same time. the reaction was wonderful! now that DD is here, i've seen the onsies framed and pinned up on walls. i think everyone likes having a memento of that day. have fun making your announcement!


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## Autumn Breeze

Nothing nearly as creative as some of these ladies!!! WOW!

I baked brownies, and took them over to my parents for dinner. I'd added "It's a BABY due 9-05" to them before we left the house. It was cute.

For my In-laws, dh just said, "so, we interviewd a midwife yesterday, and went ahead and hired her"


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## ozzyemm

We have not conceived yet(2 ww!!), but already have a great idea







, which actually comes from DH's mom. When she was pregnant with her first baby, MIL sent her Mom and MIL a picture of her with a stork! Her mom didn't get it, because at the time my MIL lived in Africa and they took pictures of her with lots of weird things







.

So, to build on that, we are going to give them several pictures-- one will be of me in our kitchen, barefoot (barefoot, pregnant and in the kitchen); one will be of me reaching into the oven to get a (hamburger) bun (bun in the oven). We have also thought about getting my picture next to a bunch of cabbages in the supermarket (since we don't have a cabbage patch nearby). We have even thought about getting bear paw gloves to wear (pregnant paws).

Does anyone have anymore "punny" pregnancy expressions that we could photograph? We thought about using "In the Family Way," but I am not sure how to stage that!


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## Ell-Bell

That is such a cute idea! I may have to steal... I mean borrow it! :LOL We are going to have to tell my inlaws via mail or email, the photos would be great. Let's see... "Knocked Up"??? can't think of a good photo for that. How about, "With Child" just a photo of you standing with a random kid?

I'll try to think of more.


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## Full Heart

This time I sent ecards to my parents and out of state relatives. For others I have waited for the inevitable, "So you pg yet?" and get to say, "Yep!" People are always so shocked. I know they ask to be funny but its really rude so I figured I would teach them a lesson lol. This time we didn't tell my ils. We just let them figure it out on their own.

Michelle


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## swebster

i'm due in July and we decided to announce at christmas. i mailed x-mas gifts with notes "do not open until dec.25th" for my father, who is a musician i sent a book of lullubies. for my mother, who is an avid knitter, i sent a pattern for a cute little baby sweater plus a few balls of yarn. then i just waited for the christmas morning phone call. at first i felt a little silly sending them gifts that i would be getting back (i do expect my dad to burn a cd of lullubies for babe and i do want that little sweater!), but they were so thrilled and surprised that i could tell it was the right way to break the news. they love to tell the storey.


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## because

With DD (our first):

For my mom and dad, we told them on Mother's Day by giving a card to my mom that started with, "There is no better day than Mother's Day to celebrate a grandmother's love..." She thought I put the wrong card in her envelope.

For ILs: we gave MIL a bib for Mother's Day.

For my extended family, we wrote "We're Pregnant!" on the face of an entire deck of playing cards; got the family together to do a "card trick"; when they turned their cards over for the "trick" they all saw the message at once.

WIth this one, we had DD tell my mom and dad on the phone that "My mommy's having a baby." We sent a balloon bouquet to MIL for her birthday with a card that said "Happy Birthday, Grandma! Love, Elizabeth and #6". (This will be the 6th grandkid on DH's side.)

Haven't announced to most friends yet.


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## Earth Angel

With #1 we just sorta told everyone cause we were so excited...
but for #2 I had decided that if we got preganant I'd finally cut my hair off and donate it to Locks of Love (my hair had been down to my butt for years). So....We sent pics of our hair cuts (Dh decided to do it too after I told him what I had promised to myself) and then called and said yeah we had promised to cut our hair if we were blessed with a second child. The conversation went on and then a "Wait a min....a second child...Oh congratulations!!!!"
It was a really visible way to bring up the new baby sice everyone was SOOOO shocked that we'd cut our hair.


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## Ell-Bell

Just thought I'd bump this back up- I found out a few days ago that we are pregnant.







yay!







We wanted to tell our parents right away, but they both live fairly far away from us. So, I took the idea from a previous poster and took a picture of a hamburger bun sitting in our oven. We emailed it to both our parents with no note, just "March 2006" in the subject line. Then we phoned both sets and asked them to check their email because we wanted to make sure that they got a funny email we were sending them. My MIL and FIL were eating dinner, and said they would check when they were done. MIL called back about 2 hours later, and just said, "We give up!" I said, "It's a mind bender, you have to solve it..." She says, "Well... It's a bun in the stove."







Me: "Nooo, it's not in the stove" MIL: "OK, it's in the oven." Me: "Yeah...."







Finally she goes, "Oh, a bun in the oven... IS THERE A BUN IN THE OVEN!?!?!?!" then she laughed and cried. By brother had a similar revelation, and my grandma thought it was a cat in the oven.









Because we got pregnant for the first time a few months ago and were waiting to tell them, then we had a miscarriage and ended up telling them after the fact, we really wanted to tell them asap this time, so that even if something goes wrong they will still go through the excitement with us. Teling them in a surprise fun way was reallly great.

Thanks for all the creative ideas!


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## Jlse

Ell-bell that's really funny! and congrats!

Well, I wish I had read this earlier but this is what I did just last night actually!

I'm 3 months along but won't see my parents for awhile still so thought I'd go ahead and tell them now. My mom is deaf so I had my 2year old sign 'I'm a big brother' and took pics of each sign. I then emailed her and talked to her via IMing while she looked at the pics. Took awhile as the last one was hard for ds to do and not very clear. So our conversation went a little like this 'I'm a big boy?' no ' I'm a man?' no keep looking at the last one. It was great when she got it - I could really tell she was excited!

For ds I put one of the ultrasound pics in a grandma bragbook and wrapped it up and gave it as a gift. MIL knew instantly and actually jumped up and down for nearly a 1/2 hour! It was our first and her first grandchild so she was more than thrilled. This time we kinda let something about the baby slip into a conversation and she kept talking, then stopped and looked confused. Finally she turned and looked at me and asked if she heard what she thought she heard. She still jumped up but much calmer reaction and still funny.


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## hopefulfaith

We got to tell our parents this last Christmas - my mother's first grandbaby!







We drove from MD to MI to tell her in person - got one of those Hallmark Family Tree things (big metal tree that you can buy and put little picture frames of all of your family members on it) - did pics of the family and framed/hung them. Then, got a really neat little frame and put a picture of a 10 week old baby in utero and hung it on the tree. She opened it, and was looking at all the pictures...saw the baby, and it took her a minute, but she looked at me - and I told her "That's what your grandbaby looks like right now. We'll get you an updated picture come August!"

It was so much fun.


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## hunnybumm

With our first we were so excited, we weren't trying, it just happened. I didn't want to tell anyone till I was farther along, but we just couldn't keep the secret. Nothing special.

With this one DH was overseas for a few weeks, so I had to keep it a secret from him as well as everyone else. I went to visit my family not wanting to tell them, but half way through my visit the morning sickness kicked in. The way I told them was "Hey, mom (dad), I am pregnant, I am going to throw up now." or something to that effect. LOL

The way I told DH when he got back was I had a t-shirt made for DS. It said "I'm the Big Brother". I had DS wear the shirt when we went to pick DH up. After about 10 mintues I had to point the shirt out to him.









DH just told his mom about the shirt, that is how she found out. We had forgotten to pack the shirt to show her.







:


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## atomicmama

When my aunt was preg with her first, she told her mom by wearing a shirt that said, "Yes, I am"


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## honeybee

I confirmed my pg a week ago. We always have a big Fourth of July barbecue, so we decided to tell everyone then. I used fabric paint to make 2 nearly identical shirts for ds. The first shirt said "All American Boy." The second one said "All American Big Brother." After everyone got here and saw the first shirt, I changed him into the second shirt. Then we waited to see how long it took anyone to notice. I sent ds around to each of his grandparents in turn. They played with him, fed him off their plates, etc, but never noticed the shirt!

I finally gave up and just let him run around while I ate. About 45 minutes later, dh's coworker's wife asked about the shirt. This isn't someone we see often, so she was a little confused. Did we have another child? My dad, stepmom, and ILs were in the vacinity, and finally took a good look at the shirt! Finally, it dawned on everyone what the shirt meant! :LOL

Oh, we didn't do this, but dh suggested just waiting until somone asked "when are you going to have another baby?" which is fairly common, and then say "We put in an order a few weeks ago. It should be shipped by March."


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## mom2threenurslings

Ell-Bell: Congratulations!!!

We had a miscarriage 3 weeks before conceiving our first, so I was in denial for a while and then finally took a test and it came out +. I was trying to think of how to tell my parents when one day at their house my sister said to me, "I have a secret...I'm pregnant! When should I tell Mom and Dad?" I said, "How about after lunch...and then I can tell them that I"m pregnant too!" Her jaw dropped! (She had a m/c 2 weeks after me and couldn't believe we were both pg at the same time again!). So, she told our parents that she was pg and I simply said, "Me too!" They didn't believe me at first! Our kids were born 18 days apart.

With our second, we went to PA (where in-laws live) for Thanksgiving. Right after grandfather-in-law gave the blessing before the meal, my dh said, "We have one more thing to be thankful for this year...Alex (ds#1) is going to be a big brother!). Most of dh's family was there and everyone was laughing, crying, screaming, etc. It was great! Then I called my parents to wish them a "Happy Thanksgiving from the four of us." My dad said, "4...but there are only...you're NOT! FOUR! YOU ARE!" My poor family, who was listening in on the conversation, were so confused! I confirmed that I was pg and I could hear everyone's reactions over the phone. It was wonderful!

With our third, we were pg again in time to make the announcement on Thanksgiving. I had horrible morning sickness, so we ended up telling my parents (whom we see every week) in late October - in time for my Dad's birthday! We gave my Dad (who is really into computer games) a birthday card that said, "We couldn't think of what to get you for your birthday and then we discovered that the newest version of your favorite game is coming out in June 2002!." Inside it said, "Kid Steyer's Grandchild Version 9.0" (He's into Sid Meyer's games and it was his 9th grandchild!). He laughed and told my mom to read the card. Then he picked up the phone, dialed my grandmother's number and handed the phone to me and went outside to tell the neighbors! :LOL We told my in-laws, once again, at Thanksgiving. Now, every time we go for Thanksgiving they wonder if there's going to be an announcement!

This time we made a t-shirt for my Dad that said, "Papa's Top Ten" and listed his 9 grandchildren w/ "#10 coming in September 2005" at the bottom of the list. We told my ILs by sending them picture frames with 4 windows. Each window had a picture of one of our kids, and the fourth had a piece of paper in it that said, "Coming in September 2005". I got a very excited phone call from my MIL and grand-MIL a week and a half later...my MIL waited until my grand-MIL was back from vacation to open the package, which was addressed to both of them! We told the rest of the family (and our church congregation!) by having the kids wear big sibling t-shirts. Most of the people read my dd's (our youngest's) "Big Sister September 2005" t-shirt and got the idea. This time the reactions ranged from my grandmother's "God Bless You! You'll need it!" to my half-sister's "You not serious! You're CRAZY!" amidst much laughter (she's completely amused that I'm having 4 kids and thinks it's great ... but that I'm a bit off my rocker!).


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