Your Birth Bestie | The Pregnancy Podcast for an Informed and Fearless Birth Experience

39. When to Announce Your Pregnancy and the Pros and Cons of Waiting 12 Weeks

Beth Connors - Certified Nurse Midwife

Are you newly pregnant and wondering, when is it “safe” to announce your pregnancy to family and friends?

If you’re not sure if you’re ready to make a pregnancy announcement yet, or considering when to let your friends and family in on the secret, this episode will help you decide! 


Today, we are uncovering the significance of deciding when to announce your pregnancy and highlight some of the emotional and practical pieces involved in this decision. 


In this episode, we dive into the following: 

  • Why is it seen as “too early” to announce a pregnancy before 12 weeks…
  • Reasons to consider announcing your pregnancy before 12 weeks pregnant…
  • Why waiting until the second trimester to announce pregnancy might be appealing…
  • …and much more! 

You’re here because you’re unsure what to do and what feels right, so take a listen and let’s help you decide what’s best for you!

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👋 WHO AM I?

Welcome, friends! I am Beth, a certified nurse midwife, doula, and childbirth educator. My philosophy is rooted in autonomy, informed decision making, and positive mindset to help expecting parents plan for a beautiful, stress-free hospital birth. I am here to provide value to YOU through tips and practical advice, either to guide you through pregnancy or to help you prepare for childbirth, postpartum and beyond. There’s no fluff here - only info that adds to your positive experience and saves you stress and uncertainty.

I would love to normalize the experience of pregnancy and see more moms with support and excitement right away, not waiting weeks and months to “feel safe” and then get that support. Because if the first 12 weeks are full of fear, nervousness, and isolation, that's not the way I would choose to start off.

Hello and welcome to episode 39 of Your Birth Bestie. Today we are going to be talking about announcing your pregnancy to friends and family and a question I get asked all the time, “when is it “safe” to announce your pregnancy? This episode will include some conversation about pregnancy loss and anxiety around miscarriage, so if you are not in a place to listen to thi, please please don’t put yourself through feeling those emotions if you’re not ready to. Tune in next week instead where we will be talking about first trimester ultrasounds and the initial confirmation or dating ultrasound. 

But in this episode, let’s get into the significance of deciding when to announce your pregnancy and highlight some of the emotional and practical pieces involved in this decision. It really does come down to whatever feels right for you, but you’re here because maybe you’re unsure what to do and what feels right, so we can talk it through together too.

Okay, so you might feel pressure to wait 12 weeks because that’s what most people seem to do, basically waiting for the risk of miscarriage to significantly decrease, which is does! But you also might be torn because you want early support from family and friends if something were to happen to the pregnancy, so telling only those closest to you is an option too. Or you might feel really excited and don’t mind sharing your personal life like this, and share with everyone the same day you get your positive pregnancy test. Or some people wait until they literally physically can’t hide their growing bump any longer. All are valid, it’s such a personal choice.

But I do want to first talk about why it is seen as “too early” to announce before 12 weeks?

It’s common for people to wait until they are past the first trimester because this is of course the most common time to experience a miscarriage.

Miscarriage risk decreases each day of pregancy and significantly decreases in the first 12 weeks. I don’t know about you, but I was one to completely obsess and worry about miscarriage with my first two pregnancies, and would look very frequently at the miscarriage probability chart, feeling reassured each week by the decreased number. And I know I’m not the only one that does this. There is so much unknown with pregnancy, and everyone has a different experience, so it’s hard to feel the emotions of being excited, while guarding your heart in case something bad were to happen.

What I can tell you though, is even after 12 weeks, I was just as nervous something was going to go wrong and just was anticipating what the rest of pregnancy would bring, what labor and birth would bring, if my baby would be healthy… And this was my first experience with pregnancy.

Then I had my baby and realized… keep in mind I do have anxious tendencies which have very much improved since becoming a mom, but I realized that the “worrying” never completely goes away. We worry when our kid gets their first fever or that they’re going to hurt themselves going too fast downhill on their new bike, or how they are going to do without you whether that’s daycare or a friends house. The worries are evolving, but we always want what’s best for our babies of course, and it’s hard not to want to completely eliminate any harm or things like that, literally starting from the moment you find out you’re pregnant.

The truth is, a lot of it is out of our control. In pregnancy, we can take our prenatal vitamins, eat healthy, exercise, meditate or journal, get enough sleep, and the list goes on… we can do everything “right” but still have something happen to the baby or to us, or to our child, it’s just how things sometimes happen. It’s scary to think about and if you’re struggling with the “what ifs” or if they are completely consuming, it might be time to consider looking for a counselor to talk to and explore these feelings. But to some degree, we have in common that we want what’s best for our kids and it’s natural to worry.

And then of course if you or someone you care about has experienced fertility struggles or a previous miscarriage, that can be hard to separate your emotions from their experience. Learning that a friend or family member has lost a pregnancy or new baby has happened to me several times in the last few years and my heart absolutely breaks for their loss. Being pregnant or even as a mom it’s challenging to wonder will the same thing happen to me? 

Also, because we hear of how common pregnancy loss is. If you didn’t know, it’s estimated that 1 in 4 pregnancies results in a miscarriage. That’s a lot of moms, parents, and families affected so it is a common thing that happens, so of course that is a fear. But I want to reassure you that it isn’t something you can control, so trying to have the fear of losing your baby not overpower the joy and enjoyment of pregnancy, is what I urge you to focus on. Being present, focusing on now and what information in front of you or that you know, can reassure you that everything is unfolding perfectly right now, and if something else comes up you’ll address it then, and no sooner. 

This is general advice, but that is not everyone’s perspective, especially those who have experienced loss and who are guarding their heart from being broken again. I completely understand that as well, but just trying to remind families that focusing on the present is so powerful and enjoying what you are feeling now is a special experience to give yourself too.

So we briefly mentioned the increased risk of loss before 12 weeks of pregnancy, and that’s why couples often wait, but I also want to give you some reasons why maybe it would be good to announce earlier for you.

If you are someone who is excited and wants to share your news with those close to you, at least the ones you would want to know and have their support if you did end up having a miscarriage, that is where many people fall as well. Some people who have had the experience of loss, I’ve heard both ways actually, but one idea is that they didn’t have time to celebrate their little baby and the news of loss was what they shared with their loved ones, if they did share this, and they wish they would have announced earlier and had those excited moments. Some people want to share the excitement for as long as it lasts, of course hoping for a healthy, full-term pregnancy, hitting all of the exciting milestones.

Sharing the news early can help you build that strong support network early on and your friends and family can offer emotional support and assistance throughout your pregnancy journey, which I think can be really helpful during that first trimester too where you might be feeling nauseous and fatigued and need help around the house or with other kids, things like that.

The last reason I can think of, is sharing the news early can help reduce feelings of isolation, knowing that you have a network of people who are aware and supportive can be comforting. Not every pregnancy is planned and initially welcomed with excitement, there are a lot of factors that play here, so working through these emotions with loved ones early on can be helpful too.

Okay, next is why would it be a good fit for you to wait until after 12 weeks to announce your pregnancy?

If you and your partner are people that prefer to keep things in your life private, you may want to keep this to yourself for awhile. Or you may want to process it yourself and ensure that everything is progressing well. That’s perfectly fine! You are 100% on your own timeline and it doesn’t matter what anyone else does or thinks about it, it’s what you’re comfortable with. 

Also, the biggest reason many moms wait to announce is like we said due to a decreased risk of prengnacy loss from about 30% at 3 weeks to about 1% at 12 weeks. This is pretty substantial for sure.

Some couples also may want to wait until they have had certain medical tests or screenings, such as the first ultrasound, to confirm the health and viablity of the pregnancy before announcing it. If you’re not sure when ultrasounds are usually offered in pregnancy, I’ll be getting into that next week in Episode 40, so that would be a good one to listen to also.

The important part to remember is that it’s a personal decision and everyone has their own timeline. There is absolutely no right or wrong way to announce you are pregnant.

I would love to normalize the experience of pregnancy and see more moms with support and excitement right away, not waiting weeks and months to “feel safe” and then get that support. Because if the first 12 weeks are full of fear, nervousness, and isolation, that's not the way I would choose to start off. This is how I made the decision to announce my third pregnancy at 8 weeks on social media and earlier to family and friends. I also am comfortable sharing my experience with others no matter what happens and I understand that’s not the case for everyone.

I hope if anything this episode encourages you to prioritize your own needs over other people’s expectations and the decision to announce your pregnancy in highly personal. What matters most is you prioritizing what you need. Thank you so much for tuning in today. When you are ready to start to get into what to expect right from the start in early pregnancy, what each prenatal appointment will bring, and eventually how to prepare for labor, birth, and postpartum, message me the word ‘READY’ and we can chat about what you’re looking for and the support that would be the most helpful. You can find me on instagram @bethconnors_cnm or send me an email. I’m happy to jump on a free Zoom call too if you have more specific questions about how to work with me!

Thank you for being here and I hope to chat soon. See you next Tuesday!

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