I’m sort of a private person by nature. Well, I guess that’s not entirely accurate–when I know you, and am comfortable, I will talk your ear off about anything and everything both appropriate and inappropriate. BUT! Even with the people I am the most comfortable with, I’m weird about getting attention. My surprise party for my 30th birthday? Was great. But I was insanely uncomfortable. I am awkward when it comes to reactions–people watching mine or the reaction of others. I hate opening gifts in front of people. I hate any and all surprises. And I really don’t like things being a big deal, especially when it comes to me.
This is causing a minor problem because Ed wants to think of the perfect way to tell everyone in the world about the babies. It’s not good enough to just say “Hey, Sara’s going to have twins!”. He wants there to be a scheme, and a surprise, and a reaction. This makes me beyond uncomfortable. Yesterday, he wanted to drive over to a friend’s house and just knock on the door out of the blue and tell her. I forbade this. For one thing, it was 11am on Sunday. Who knew if she was even dressed? For another, I guess I feel like why are we so special that we deserve you spending time on a reaction for us? That sounds fucked up; maybe I don’t know what I mean. After the forbidding though, I was declared a stick in the mud.
He thinks that because I don’t want to make a big deal about telling people, that I don’t think the babies are a big deal; that maybe I don’t want the babies. This of course is the farthest thing from the truth. This is probably the biggest deal that has ever happened to me. And I am excited. And also, this is the 4th time I’ve done this! We’ve done the big surprise announcements. It’s kind of played out!
Regardless of the reaction people give us, I think that they’re also privately going to think “Holy shit, these crackpots are going to have 5 kids!” and if I see that on their face, then what? THEN WHAT? I’d really just rather not deal with it. I’d rather nonchalantly slip it in to a conversation, or better yet, send a freaking text message. I don’t want bells and whistles.
So anyway, Ed and I are sort of in a thing over this, because he wants to rent billboards, and I would rather just quietly be pregnant and process everything that is happening by myself without having to worry about the great way we are going to tell the next person. He’s been telling people without me, and I think that is just fantastic. I had Eddie tell my mom over the phone. I texted my brother to tell him. This is all fine with me.
I suppose that soon enough it won’t matter anyway. The babies will be quite obvious, first by their presence in my belly and then by their presence here in the world. And really, I should just drop this, and focus my efforts on worrying about other things like complications and c-sections and the NICU.
I don’t know. I can’t even think of a good way to end this post. So how about this–did any of you go all out in telling your family and friends about your pregnancies? Am I being irrational? Should Ed cut me some slack?
Incubation Nation 
I don’t think either one of you is irrational – you just want different things. I’m the same way about attention making me uncomfortable. We didn’t do big huge announcements when we had our kids only because I knew that if I thought it was a big huge deal and other people were like “hey that’s great – did you see that baseball game last weekend?” my feelings would get really hurt and I’d probably get a little bit stabby. Is it possible to compromise and he gets to big surprise a couple of people (and maybe you don’t even have to be there) and then otherwise you generally just say “oh hey there! Did i mention that we had two more kids?” when the twins are like 6 months old? Ending thought – I think you may both need to cut each other a little bit of a break. It’s awesome that he is so excited and I think I’d be very grateful and reassured by that and let him express that excitement as much as you can be comfortable with. And also he needs to keep in mind that you have some concerns about being comfortable and your reactions and other people’s and you’d like a bit of a pass on the hooplah . . . that’s not really great/helpful advice at all is it?
The telling part always makes me queasy, no matter how it happens. That is…not a helpful comment. I just mean I feel your pain.
I’m like you: I feel all uneasy about The Telling. I want to just magically be PAST that part, and have everyone already know.
What I did with the twin pregnancy was send emails with “Crazy news!” as the subject, and then something like “IT’S TWINS” as the content. I got a lot of reactions, of course, but I didn’t have to SEE them—and people could take as much time as they wanted to process it before reacting.
I held off telling my family about my 3rd pregnancy, because it was completely a surprise, and my younger sister had been trying for years to get pregnant without success. I felt guilty. But we did tell (finally) over the phone. I couldn’t see their faces, but got what I expected: What? But you’re 40?!?!?!? Are you serious? And my favorite, no kidding: No wonder you’ve been such a bitch lately.
So I totally get the whole reason you don’t want to see their faces. People need time to process it, and even then they don’t always say the right thing.
Maybe get a button printed up that says “I’m pregnant… with twins” and then if someone does see it and wants to comment, great, if they see it and don’t know what to say, they can ignore it.
Tell Ed to let you do it your way this time. You deserve to do what works for you, and if that means waiting until the kids are born, so be it!
I’m the same way about things like opening gifts and such. I would probably make an official FB post with a cute picture of the kids (like 1,2,3 on their shirts/signs and a 4 & 5 on yours) and just leave it at that. It’s SO CUTE that Ed is so excited though!!! How sweet!
I like the FB/Email idea. Take a cute picture, post it on the net. Be done. People can react how they want to and you don’t have to witness it.
But I am thrilled for you. 🙂 It is going to be amazeballs.
I’m shy about things like that, too. When I was pregnant with Kendall and Caiden, I told one person at work, and made them tell everyone else. I made sure I wasn’t there when they told everyone. I couldn’t handle being there when everyone flipped out! Especially because we hadn’t planned on having Caiden, and Kendall was only 9 months old – and I figured they’d judge me. We told our parents about Caiden at Kendall’s 1st birthday party – her last gift was a shirt that said “best sister ever.” I actually hid in the bathroom when she opened it, so I wouldn’t have to watch everyone spaz out.
(ps – this is Em… I have a new wordpress name) 😉
I meant to comment last week. We waited until the end of the first trimester to tell ANYONE that I was pregnant with the twins. After two miscarriages before The Boy was born, we didn’t want anything to go awry and us having told the world. After it felt “safer” for us we told everyone and it was fun, but we did it together, in our own way (usually though Eldest shared our news, which completely freaked everyone out).
I just really really want to give you a long, tight hug and to sit down and talk about things with you. Just things. Anything. Everything. Just talk. And be. I really want to do that. I wish we could. Love you. Paprika.