PR Campaign Around Pregnancy

Ok, I’m just going to announce it. I am pregnant – 12 weeks today to be exact. It has been such an out of body experience thus far and I still cannot believe that I’m going to be a mom. The thing is, I’m not sure others can believe it either!

You see, when we found out we were pregnant, it was the through the standard pee-on-a-stick method. I took four tests until I actually believed it. It took a few moments, but the moment it sunk in, all I wanted to do was tell the world. I told my husband and the only thing he wanted to do was keep it a secret and I was pissed at him for it.

You see, he is very traditional and didn’t want to tell anyone until we were closer to 12 weeks. The problem with this is that he married a woman who cannot keep a secret to save her life. All my friends know it and don’t tell me anything and I am very OK with that. So to have to keep my mouth closed about something that is happening TO ME for 8 weeks was nearly impossible.

But I succeeded. Now that we have kept our secret for so long, I’m not sure I want to give it up. I loved tricking people and having this secret that was between my husband and myself. Now that we are telling more people, it has been such a calculated PR campaign, I would rather we didn’t do it at all. For example:

• I had to turn off my Wall on Facebook in order for those people who knew first to not write something before others who didn’t know and needed to know, knew.
• We literally mapped out who we would tell and how the word would trickle down to other friends and family – focused on key stakeholders first and hoped the good news would trickle down from there.
• Luckily, I have been able to work at home the last few weeks in order to get over my massive fear of being sick in anywhere other than a toilet I know I personally cleaned.
• I basically have avoided my friends for the last few weeks because I felt as soon as someone saw me, they would just know…no one knew so I guess that worked out.

All in all, I never thought that sharing this great news would be so exhausting and calculated – God knows the conception was not. I’m sure that there are people that we missed and some of my friends are going to have to settle for an email note vs. a phone call, but dammit, I’m exhausted – and it is only week 12. Crap.