the anatomy of an announcement

pregnancies that aren't ours, but theirs

“Thank goodness you told me about that ovulation charting app!”, said a friend once.

“We got a hole in one because of that” said her partner.

Whilst a little piece of me died inside. A honeymoon conception. I knew it was coming. It came bang on time and I felt terrible about it anyway.

Shall we go there, the dissection of the pregnancy reveals that gut punch us?

They arrive, sometimes predictably and sometimes like a stealth shot. So I thought I’d write an uncensored piece on how it can feel, with no shame about naming all the things we feel we shouldn’t say. Let’s say them. Let’s normalise them.

the anticipated

I’m going to call these the common garden announcements. We’ve had ample warning. Maybe they told us they were trying and that they were excited about it. Maybe they misjudged that it would be OK to ask us for some advice about the whole ‘trying thing’. Maybe they just got married.

We zoom into that Instagram story screenshot to see if it’s alcohol in that glass or water…

When we’re proved right that it was water not gin, that they weren’t actually on antibiotics for cystitis but that they weren’t drinking because.. pregnant. Well it isn’t really a surprise. It isn’t a surprise when the people we meet along the trying to get pregnant path - our TTC allies - get pregnant. We become accustomed to being last in the queue.

But it is still, nonetheless, a shock and a reckoning. We’ll talk about shock later.

the snipers

It hurts that the anticipated hurts. It hurts for many many reasons. We are reminded that people get pregnant just by having sex. They plan their pregnancies to the month. They joke about how they didn’t get much of the ‘fun part’. Our closer friends are now on different parenthood NCT trajectories whilst we track the groundhog days of our cycles.

The sniper announcement hits different. The, but you said you never wanted children/you only just met him/you’re pregnant again already/you’ve had an accident…they blindside when our shield is down. Though we might get a split second to armour up if someone says ‘we’ve got some news…”.

We become experts in reading the room, bracing for blows, both vigilant and defenceless.

close up and personal

Please don’t let it be you. I add to the list here siblings and best friends and other people who make the list just because they’re who they are. I’ll keep this paragraph short, because I know you know.

modes of delivery

Text is best. We know this. Many don’t. The scan photo on social media is standard.

Awkward phone calls arrive with inevitability ‘we thought we’d tell you before we all get together because we know it’s hard’ - so well meant. Still painful. Smiling announcements at meals out with friends, colleagues polishing off a Zoom call with ‘one last thing…’

Some people we know can’t get step into the discomfort of telling us at all. We find out second hand or when the bump is beyond disguising. We wear our brave masks that it’s all OK and we’re so happy for them.

Because we are. Kind of. And, we aren’t actually.

I think I really wanted to write this as a holding space for all of the emotions that rupture outwards in the aftermath of hearing that someone we know is pregnant. Because each discovery is a reminder that people do conceive. Quickly, unexpectedly, ordinarily, by mistake, through assisted conception. They have conceived. And we haven’t. Again. We fall into shock. It’s worth remembering that so much of the emotional riptide is, in fact, physical and emotional shock. It will dissipate. It needs care and time and tenderness.

Our finding out is like a pass the parcel gift of envy, jealously, disappointment, berating ourselves for not feeling more generous, self pity, sadness and grief. In the very middle are probably darker things.

In between the layers though, is a knowing that this will evolve. The landmarks of twelve week, twenty week, third trimester, baby shower, due date and birth will come and go. We’ll adjust.

But it is hard. And you are human. So go gently on you and all of the layers.