Pregnancy diary part three: Telling our family and friends

This photo was supposed to be my way of announcing my pregnancy to my friends. Unfortunately it didn’t go to plan.

This is the third instalment of Imogen’s pregnancy diary.

Part one: Why I was dumbstruck when I found out I was pregnant

Part two: The first doctor’s appointment, blood tests and dating scan

My experience of pregnancy symptoms in the first trimester were very minimal.

My breasts became really sore and sensitive and I was dry gagging like 10-plus times a day.

I was very lucky in that I didn’t experience any morning sickness, but I was still dry gagging at any opportunity.

Wake up in the morning? Gag. Out walking the dog? Gag. Sitting on the train? Gag. Just talking about the gagging could set me off. Even writing this now is making my throat feel like it needs to go.

So frequent were these gags, I became very good at telling when one was about to come and could sometimes suppress it from coming up. Often that would just result in a stronger one later, though.

But those two things – the gagging and the sore breasts – were the only signs my body was giving me that I was pregnant. I felt very normal overall.

As the weeks went on, Michael and I began telling our family and friends our exciting news.

We wanted to be creative about how we told people, we didn’t just want to drop it on them like I had in the winery bus, even though that had been fun!

I remember we went to Michael’s friend’s gig in Thornbury and we were meeting our friends earlier for a drink. We’d already told them we’d be driving in and on the way we were scheming on how we could tell them.

We decided on Michael offering to get me a drink from the bar and me refusing on account of being pregnant.

So, we walked in, said g’day to our friends and then Michael offered to get me a drink from the bar.

Michael, Imogen and Teddy announce the pregnancy on social media.

The theatrics ensued and I said my line which was quickly followed by hugs and congratulations.

My friend Emily said she’d been suspicious when we’d said we’d be driving into the gig, as originally we’d planned to all catch the train together.

The day after, Emily and I were going away for a girls’ weekend down to the Mornington Peninsula with five of our other besties.

Emily and I were carpooling down there and spent a fair amount of time discussing how we were going to tell the others.

We’d decided on suggesting taking a group polaroid picture and in that picture I’d hold up a piece of paper that said, ‘I’m pregnant!’ so that when it developed everyone would read it and realise.

However, that plan nearly came undone at lunch where we all met before checking into the accommodation.

As we were ordering our meals, my friend Daniel was deciding whether or not to have a glass of wine with lunch. He was asking around the table if anyone wanted a wine with him and said to Emily, “are you having a wine?” and she was hesitant about answering.

Vanessa then said to her, “what, are you pregnant or something?” to which she hurriedly responded, “No!” and I wondered if I was blushing at that moment.

Vanessa, to my horror then said to Daniel, “Imogen will have a wine with you.”

Internally panicking, I just nodded and looked down at the menu while thinking to myself, “OK it’s coming out here, I’m going to have to tell them”.

Emily then quickly interjected and said, “fine, I’ll have a wine with you Danny,” which took the pressure off me. Phew!

It also helped that Rebekah, who ordered before me, ordered a coffee with lunch which allowed me to order one after her without raising suspicions.

Once at the house, it was a covert operation between Emily and I on how I could write my ‘I’m pregnant!’ sign – I didn’t have one prepared earlier – without anyone seeing.

Once we’d found some paper, I waited until everyone was unpacking in their rooms to quickly write my sign and shove it into my back pocket. I then went and found Emily and gave her a nod that I was ready.

“Alright, let’s take our group polaroid now, before we get too drunk,” she said.

We gathered in the lounge room and took the picture, but I was too slow in getting the sign unfolded so that pic was a dud.

We tried again under a guise I can’t remember, and this time I managed to get the sign unfolded in time. Yes! Now all we had to do was wait until it developed and all would be revealed.

Except it wasn’t. The flash of the polaroid whited-out the piece of paper and you couldn’t see the words! No!

Never mind, I thought, once we all look at the picture, they’ll ask me what the hell I was doing holding up a blank piece of paper and then I will pull out the sign and show them.

Except no one asked me about the paper.

Everyone was distracted by the fact that Vanessa had managed to get her nipple out for the photo that my piece of paper went unnoticed.

An edited version of how we hoped the polaroid would turn out.

After the failed photo, I went for a little lie down – really a thinking session, to come up with some other way to announce the news.

We’re all fans of trashy TV show The Real Housewives, so we’d planned to have a Real Housewives-themed cocktail night that evening, where we’d dress up and make themed drinks based on the show.

So I texted Emily, “I know how I’m going to do it: whoever starts making cocktails first I’m gonna yell out, ‘wait! Stop. Stop. Stop! I can’t drink that … cos I’m pregnant’.”

Once I got up from my ‘nap’ and we were getting ready for our cocktail night, Rebekah and I were in the kitchen waiting for the others. She’d poured herself a glass of wine and said to me, “are you going to have a drink before we do cocktails?”.

I said “oh yeah, good idea” and opened the fridge, staring blankly into it and panicking about what I was going to do because I hadn’t brought any drinks at all.

I said, “actually nah I’ll wait ‘til the cocktails and see how I go” and closed the fridge full of other people’s drinks.

Crisis averted, although I thought she’d be suss for sure.

As the others came out, Emily set the stage and said she would make her cocktail first.

As she began pouring the vodka into one of the cups, I yelled out across the room loud enough to stop all conversation, ‘wait Em, stop! Are you putting vodka in that?’ to which she said ‘yeah’ and I said, ‘I can’t drink that, ‘cause I’m pregnant’ which immediately sent the room into a meltdown of shocked squeals, disbelief and excitement.

Vanessa, the event planner, immediately offered to plan my baby shower, which I was so thankful for and thrilled to accept.

Turns out none of them had been suspicious of anything: not the coffee at lunch, not the blank piece of paper, not the no drink before the cocktails. Just me overthinking it!

Rebekah, Daniel, me, Vanessa, Ashlea and Emily dressed to the nines for our 'Real Housewives' themed cocktail night on our weekend away.

Sunday Funday on our weekend away, at our 'Real Housewives' themed night.

Earlier in the year, I’d told another one of my close girlfriends, Tayla, that Michael and I were planning on trying for a baby this year, so she had been periodically asking how that process had been going.

She lives down near Geelong, and one weekend I was heading down that way so organised to catch up and see her.

During the conversation to sort the catch up, Tayla asked me how we’d been going with the baby-making.

I lied and said nothing had happened yet because I wanted to tell her in person.

When we caught up for brunch, I spent the whole meal psyching myself up to tell her.

Each time I told someone for the first time, it was a mental effort to calm my nerves. I don’t know why but I would get so nervous to tell people, even though I knew they’d be happy for me.

I was also trying to find a natural pause in the conversation to bring it up, but because she lives far away from me, we had so much to catch up on that the natural pause didn’t come up until the very end.

I said, ‘So, I have to tell you something. I lied to you yesterday.’

She immediately welled up and said, “don’t tell me in here (the cafe)!” and I just nodded and we hugged and she cried tears of joy.

Then of course, we spent the next hour or so talking about the pregnancy!

It was easy to disguise the reason for catching up to tell my mum, brother and sister-in-law.

My mum had been on an eight-week trip of a lifetime around Europe and was coming home. “Let’s catch up to see Mum and hear about her holiday!” – easy peasy.

At the time, my brother Ryan and his wife Amy, were selling some of the baby stuff they no longer needed.

As the conversation over lunch progressed, I casually asked them how they’d gone selling their stuff.

Ryan explained they’d sold some of it but still hadn’t sold the pram.

I said, “oh that’s OK, you can give it to us”.

He didn’t catch on to what I meant and said, “yeah we can save it for when you guys have a baby,” to which I responded, “oh no, you can give it to us now”.

Amy then said, “is this your way of telling us you’re pregnant?” to which Michael and I nodded and they all lit up and congratulated us.

It wasn’t as easy to camouflage our reason for catching up with Michael’s family because we didn’t have a ready-made excuse like we’d had for mine.

A few weeks earlier, I’d caught up with Michael’s mum, his siblings and our niece for a Mother’s Day brunch but Michael wasn’t able to make it as he’d been working that day.

So I rang his mum Penny and said, “oh we should all catch up again seeing as Michael didn’t get to see anyone for Mother’s Day and his birthday is coming up.”

She said, “yes we should, but Michael’s birthday isn’t for a few weeks yet …” – shit, she’s onto me.

“Yeah but I don’t know what we’re doing for his birthday and we want to make sure that we get to see you all,” I replied, knowing that I’d bungled it.

During the lunch, Michael and I kept looking at each other when the conversation lulled, silently asking the other, ‘do we say it now?’.

We couldn’t think of any clever lines to say to his family to tell them, so he just said, “so, we have some news …” and told them.

Penny said she knew we were going to tell them and had been suspicious after my performance on the phone.

We called the rest of our extended family with the news and they were all thrilled for us. We wanted to announce it on social media, but wanted to wait a little while longer to pass the 12-week mark and until we’d told our workplaces.

12 weeks signals the end of the first trimester – the trimester where 80 per cent of miscarriages occur – so most people wait until they’re out of those woods before announcing a pregnancy.

Our family also suffered a very difficult loss during this period and we wanted to be mindful of how everyone was feeling before posting happy news, given the grief we were all feeling.

Originally published as Pregnancy diary part three: Telling our family and friends