That One Time I Found Out I Was Pregnant and How We Told Everyone the News

Whether it's an "Oops! Surprise! I'm preggers!" situation, an adventure planned down to a science with ovulation tracking, fertility supplements, and months of trying, or somewhere in between, everyone's pregnancy story is different. Here's ours…

After much discussion (and years of pressure from our moms to "get crackin' on the babies already!", haha) my husband and I decided in October of 2014 that we would start trying to have a family at the end of the year, or early the next year. We decided that we would keep it completely under wraps and not tell a single soul we were even thinking about kids both to make it an even bigger surprise when we did conceive, as well as to avoid any pressure or unwanted questions if we had any fertility trouble or difficulty.

I had been on birth control pills for many years for health reasons, so I was terrified (TER. RI. FIED.) of the side effects that might come along with detoxing off of them. Hair loss, and weight gain, and acne-- oh my! I was also worried that, because all those hormones had been in my system for so long consistently and my body didn't really have to ever worry about making them itself, that it would take a long time for me to conceive. In preparation, I stocked up on reproductive support supplements including a maca root herbal supplement, multivitamin, and folic acid. I also cleaned up my diet and focused on eating clean, whole foods. Then at the end of November, I stopped taking the pill.

The month of Decemeber was, well…weird. I was having some side effects including nausea, fatigue, and holy sore boobs, Batman! The problem was, every time I would look my symptoms up to see what could be the cause the same two things popped up: It could be detoxing from the pill -OR- it could be pregnancy. Welp, great. That's no help at all. So I sat tight, remained patient, and tried not to get my hopes up (whilst still spending a small fortune on home pregnancy tests, juuuuust in case!)

The side effects/symptoms persisted and on Christmas morning 2014 I took another home pregnancy test. It came back positive! My husband was working that day and most places were closed for the holiday, so I freaked out with excitement solo at home then rushed out to Walgreens (the only place open) to get another test for confirmation and a little ornament gift that I could use to tell my husband.

The second test, a digital one, also came back positive! It clearly said "PREGNANT", which is pretty hard to deny. I used a sharpie to write a little note to my husband on the ornament and I wrapped that, along with the positive tests, and put the package under the Christmas tree.

We didn't open presents between the two of us until the next morning and the waiting was KILLING ME, but I played it cool until it was present time. We opened all of our gifts to each other, leaving the big surprise until last. There were some shrieks of excitement, some hugs, and some happy tears. It was perfect.

L- Me freaking out alone on Christmas R- The ornament I made to share the news with Husband

We used different ways to reveal the news to the rest of our friends and family. We went out the day after Christmas and bought frames for our parents. It was a frame typically used to hold a sonogram picture and it said "Coming Soon…" on it, but since we didn't have a sonogram picture yet we just framed a picture of the positive pregnancy test. No one aside from my husband and I knew we were even thinking about kids, which was intentional (we love a good surprise!). So our parents FREAKED. OUT. when they opened their gifts.
My older sister lives out of town in Arkansas, and while I really wanted to make a trip down to tell her in person, it just wasn't going to work out. So, I wrapped some flavored coffee with a note that said, "Something Sweet is Brewing…", then I separately wrapped two mugs that said, "Aunt Jennifer" and "Uncle Jarrod". I shipped their gift down posing as a belated Christmas present, and we got to FaceTime with them as they opened it. So fun!

L- Gift we made for our parents R- Gift we made for my sister

For most of our other local friends and family, announcing our news lined up perfectly with the fact that we just bought a new house. We invited them over to get a little tour of our new place, saving one room for last. When we walked in, we had it modestly decorated in baby stuff, showing that it would be the future nursery.

L- Our makeshift baby nursery set-up R- A close-up of our table including the first picture of our blurry jellybean

For some of my out of town friends, I sent a "life update" email around Valentine's Day along with this picture that I bought as a downloadable from Orange Elephant Designs on Etsy. You can find it here.

L- Downloadable by Orange Elephant Designs R- Custom Wine Labels by Ten Twelve Designs

I also used this custom wine bottle label from Ten Twelve Designs (found here) to announce the big news at a girl's night. Gotta love Etsy and being able to find fun, unique ways to share the news!

Lastly, we used the doodle above to text to some of our friends and to announce on Facebook. I already had the family portrait done because we used it as our Christmas card last year, so I just had to make some edits, change our outfits, add a few words and a baby bump, and I recycled it to use as a baby announcement! Easy peasy!

L- Family Portrait Illustration I created for last year's Christmas card R- Made-over portrait we used for our baby announcement