Before I even thought of getting pregnant, I knew that when the day came I wanted to surprise my husband with the news in a cute and original way. However, that’s not exactly the way it played out – with either of my pregnancy announcements!

We had only been trying for a month when I became pregnant the first time, and I was completely caught off guard. After a bad workout and some helpful advice from my sister, I decided to take an at-home test. On my way from the store – test in hand -- I called my husband to come home right away. My message must have had him concerned, because he made it in record time!

When he walked in, I had already taken the test but couldn't muster up the courage to check it myself. I'll never forget him saying "Are you serious?" when I asked him to take the first peek. He sat beside me for a second, as if to let it all sink in, and then with a flash, he jumped up and said, "Let's do this". Once he took a look, he immediately began celebrating like he won the Super Bowl – I knew then that we were pregnant!

When the opportunity rolled around for my second chance, I once again dropped the ball when it came to a cute and original pregnancy announcement for my husband. After several months of trying, I was having trouble getting pregnant. I had seen my doctor, and after some testing, he felt I had a good chance of getting pregnant in the following month. So it really wasn't a surprise to my husband when I told him I was going to take a test. After six months of getting negative results, I didn't want to find out alone. And just like before, we sat for what felt like an eternity, until the timer went off.  For the second time, my husband checked the test first, it was positive! We had done it again.

In hindsight, it wasn't the most creative way to make a pregnancy announcement, but it was perfect for us. Being pregnant in itself is one of life's greatest surprises, and I'm glad I got to share that moment with my husband.

Photo by Carly Rae Hobbins on Unsplash

We had three pregnancy announcements to break the news to our families, and we opted to announce it each time in a fun and different way!

When trying to decide how to tell your parents you’re pregnant, you may feel overwhelmed with all the ways you could surprise them. It was fun to have separate reveals, starting with my dad. At the time, my father lived in California, so we simply video-chatted him and said, “We have something to tell you!” He guessed right away. It was awesome to announce it to him through video chat, because we got to see his expression!

My mother lives about four hours from us, so we asked if she’d like to meet us halfway for dinner. We arrived at the restaurant before she did, and I clued the waitress in on our plan. The waitress rolled my mom’s silverware up in a white onesie instead of a napkin. When my mom arrived, I offered her the ‘best seat’ at the table. We waited on pins and needles for our appetizers to arrive, and when the food came, she unrolled her fork and knife…only to discover the baby outfit!  She was so surprised and shocked that she just held it up, staring at it. Finally, I said, “Mom! I’m pregnant!” and she started to cry, overjoyed at the thought of our new addition to the family.

My in-laws live nearby, so we went over for dinner. My husband brought in his mother’s ‘special gift’ -- a huge (and I do mean HUGE!) box, all wrapped up with pretty paper and bows. My mother-in-law kept saying, “What is this? It’s not a holiday or my birthday!” When she opened it up, a bunch of pink and blue balloons came flying out! Like my mother, she was so surprised that she was rendered speechless. After my husband finally explained the news, she said, “Wait! I have a gift for you, too!” and ran upstairs. She brought down a teddy bear and explained that she’d been saving it for the very day we would make our pregnancy announcement!  

Two years later, the teddy bear is one of Henry’s favorite toys. I love watching him play with it, as it always reminds me of the creative ways we announced our happy news.

Photo by Mayur Gala on Unsplash

Making a pregnancy announcement to family members is always a fun experience. In our case, it was double the fun, because we were expecting not one, but two babies. My family and my husband’s parents knew I was pregnant, but it wasn’t until my first ultrasound around six weeks that anyone knew about the second baby.

They say “seeing is believing,” so I took a picture of the ultrasound print out -- with two sacs -- and sent a text message saying, “Two babies, and two heart beats!” Needless to say, my phone immediately started blowing up with calls and text messages expressing shock and excitement for our growing family!

After my next ultrasound confirmed that the babies were still growing strong (you get a lot of extra appointments with twins), we made our pregnancy announcement to my husband’s sister. He called her and told her we were going to have a baby, detailing the measurements and heartbeat of one baby. Then he said, “The other baby looks good, too.” Stunned silence on the other end of the phone!  Until she finally managed to say, “There are two babies!”

We told our extended family as I neared the end of the first trimester. It always started by telling the person I was pregnant, and they would express congratulations. Then we would say something like, “Guess how many babies there are?” or “The really awesome part is that there are two babies in there!” There was usually a second or two of shock before we’d get a standard response of “get out of town!” or “are you serious?”

We wanted to share with our immediate families the excitement of finding out the genders of the babies. Instead of the doctor telling us the genders at the anatomy scan, we had her write the gender of each baby on a piece of paper and took it to a bakery. We had two “gender reveal cakes” made. When you cut into a gender reveal cake, the frosting and/or cake inside is either pink or blue, letting you know what gender the baby is. So we gathered our immediate families into the dining room and made everyone guess what gender they thought each baby would be. The guesses were pretty split between boy boy, girl girl, and one of each. When we cut into the first cake, we saw a pink line of frosting. Then the second cake also had pink frosting! Two girls! It was a really wonderful moment—and even more special, because we got to share our news of the two new additions to the family with everyone.

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Making our pregnancy announcement to our family was so much fun; I wouldn’t mind doing it again!  

My husband and I knew we wanted to tell our parents before anyone else. So, we invited everyone out to dinner, a common thing for us to do. We had everyone meet at our house, my husband copied the photo of the ultrasound onto a flash drive and was all set up to have it display on our TV. We also had a video camera secretly facing where they were going to be when we showed them. We chatted for a bit, and then suggested it was time to head out. That’s when my husband said, “Before we leave, I want to show you guys something on the TV.”

The screen turned on and displayed our ultrasound picture. My mom started screaming -- she instantly knew we were introducing our new addition to the family! My dad was super excited, and my husband’s parents were in shock. My husband then said, “Marci is 8 weeks pregnant!” Everyone was ecstatic. Then my husband said, “But wait…there is more: She is pregnant with twins!” Then the screaming really began, and all the crying began, too. It was so amazing sharing our pregnancy announcement with our parents.

We told our siblings next by showing them the ultrasound picture in a clever way. Both of our brothers did not believe us, which was funny that they had the same reaction. We then told as many family members in person as we could about our growing family and called the ones who lived too far. It was so much fun and hilarious to see and hear everyone’s response when we told them we were having twins.

We say that we wish we could have documented all the reactions -- but we’re happy we caught our parents’ responses on camera!

When you've been married for almost five years, your family has a tendency to ask you if you're pregnant on a regular basis. So when it finally came time to make the big pregnancy announcement, I knew it had to be good.

With my first pregnancy, things didn't quite go as planned, but we still were able to have some fun with it. I was really sick one day and on the urging of my sister, I went and bought a pregnancy test. I didn't tell her I was going to do it, but she swears to this day, "she knew" before I told her by just looking at me.

For the rest of our family members, however, I told my husband I wanted to wait until I saw the doctor before sharing any news. So imagine my surprise when, as my mom is walking through the door the next day, my husband just blurted out "Hi Grandma." After her celebration dance, we had to swear her to secrecy and came up with the plan to reveal the big news at brunch on Mother's Day, a month later. I bought all the women Mother's Day cards and signed them from the baby. It took a minute for people to notice, but when they did, it was perfect.

When it came time to make the next pregnancy announcement for our second baby, I had a secret weapon: my 2½ year-old daughter. I purchased her a 'big sister' t-shirt and then took a picture. I really liked seeing everyone's reactions in person the first time, so I literally carried the photograph around and would show it to members of the family. After they'd look at the photo, I'd have my daughter tell them she was going to have a baby brother or sister. She loved getting to be the one who got to tell the big secret!

Though my ideas weren't anything over the top, I truly enjoyed them, because they allowed us to be with the people we loved while sharing some of the biggest news of our lives. Seeing everyone so excited about our new additions to the family let us know that our little ones would be so loved when they arrived.

Photo by Tuva Mathilde Løland on Unsplash