Let me present my thesis: I dislike the current trend of sonogram exploitation.
That's a bit harsh, but only a bit. More specifically, I dislike cheesy pregnancy announcements and this social media-driven expectation to do some stupid thing to announce that you are pregnant.
Let's be 1950's housewives and not let our husband in the kitchen while we bake an artificially colored pink or blue cake and cover it with $20 worth of buttercream so he can't see the cake's color. Oh, and make sure you do all the dishes ASAP and don't let him help with the dishes in case he sees pink or blue crumbs. Now he cuts it open and PINK! Or BLUE! YAY! Wasn't that fun? Meh...
You're pregnant in the fall? Let me guess, you're adding another pumpkin to your patch... (insert one of the million photos of pumpkins including one "baby" pumpkin...) Yeah, we know, we know.
Or we can pop balloons and whatever and see what secret boy or girl surprise falls out. Sounds like too much work with one's hands... something of which I'm not a particular fan.
(Sorry to this^ family. I'm sure you're very nice. But yes, I do think you are ridiculous.)
Whatever happened to just calling people on the phone and saying, "I'm pregnant." Is that really so difficult? Does this exciting moment need to be dressed up with staged photographs with words superimposed by photoshop reading: "BABY ____ COMING THIS SPRING!!!!!!" (Also, one exclamation point is sufficient, please.)
And husbands. How do they NOT know the sex of their child when you do? How sad it is that you got your ultrasound alone?! Or how dumb of you to ask him to close his eyes during the ultrasound?! Seriously? That is his child, too!
This pregnancy/gender reveal thing seems new because of social media coercing us into acting nuts, but I recognize that it has been an artificial thing for quite a while. I remember once I was stuffed into a leader's car on a young women's activity. The leader was pregnant and an older young woman asked how she told her husband that she was pregnant. Although that leader didn't know it at the time, she gave some great marriage advice in answer to that question: "I never needed to tell him, he was with me every step of the way."
Imagine that. Having a baby together with your spouse.
And by extension, I believe that since your child is adding to the greater context of you and your spouse's combined families, that you have a baby together with the support of your family, too. It doesn't need to include big fanfare or a meticulously drawn, cut, and pasted craft. It is about love.
It has taken me some time to get used to Hub's family always asking about us having kids. White people much more tight-lipped about it, by comparison. At first I really REALLY hated everyone asking when we are having kids. I got angsty and sometimes replied things like, "When I'm no longer radioactive from my radiation." Or, "When my neuro-oncologist says I can." Those are true statements, but I admit they were said just to rub in that I had cancer and that people should leave me alone about kids for a while, since I have enough to deal with.
But those truthful statements didn't have to be angsty. If I was more open with my in-laws about the ongoing effects of my radiation, they could support me and they would probably hold off on the kids questions. Being open about what is going on in your lives-- including infertility-- can often turn what feels like bitter, condemning questioners, into allies and supporters.
Similarly, Hubs has NO FILTER when it comes to what I view as personal information. People I have never met and probably never will meet know all about my medical history and my subsequent mental health trauma-- things I would never talk about! Hubs famously got up in church and told everyone, "Yeah, I think we will start trying to have kids on X day..." I almost DIED! I have always kept myself to myself. I have no problem expressing things that I want to express, there is just a lot that I DON'T want to express, and so I don't. He is not like that.
This trait used to make me CRAZY. But then I saw, time after time, when he spilled what I considered too much information, that people reached out in support of whatever issue I was trying to keep private. People in his family whom I don't even know are always calling him up on that phone and checking up on me with specificity and offering their prayers and concern. (And asking when we're having kids...)
And that is what families and childbearing is all about-- genuine love and support. You can keep your cheesy pink and blue craft store junk, and you can keep your baby pumpkins. I have a family who cares.
