Facebook announcement - X is having a little baby brother or sister in October (so that's end of 1st trimester now, right?). X was present at the scan. Why would you do that??!
What's even more galling is this is a couple that was, for good reason, getting upset about taking a really long time to get pregnant the first time; reading between the lines, there may have been a minor issue that they were unwilling to treat (or even get diagnosed properly; I seem to remember a whisper of MF and a grumpy husband). But age (20-something) and time were on their side; the happily sub-fertile.
7 comments:
What are you more upset about, the Facebook announcement or the fact that the older sibling was at the scan? Would you have preferred a private email before the Facebook message? (Not being cheeky, just trying to understand what the main issue is here.)
We had DD at the two private scans (one at 7.5 weeks, one at 20+ weeks, 3D) I had for DS, because we thought it would help her bond with her sibling; in fact, she was the third to know that I was pregnant (first me, then DH, then her). She also came with me to a few midwife appointments and was quite interested in the whole procedure. In fact, she was more interested in the appointments than the scans.
One of the reason I chose to involve her in the pregnancy very early on was so that I could be honest with her about what was happening, why mummy was tired, had to go to the doctor, etc.
Facebook announcements aren't great. Especially not when the foetus becomes the profile picture.
Frankly, you are much braver than I and I do feel, rude though it sounds, a little foolhardy taking an older sibling to a scan. What would you have done if it had been bad news at the early scan? I'm sure you're aware of the statistics and I don't really see how any pregnant woman can not be aware of how easily it can go wrong.
I've heard of several horror stories of women having bad news with a child in the room who just doesn't understand what is going on. I just don't get why they would take their child to the scan.
It would seem every subsequent-child parent should read my post about my son's teacher, no? And she wasn't even sub-fertile/infertile. I made the mistake - once, and was grateful my son was only barely 3 so he quickly forgot. Even my OB told me on my 6th pregnancy I should wait at least until 20 wks. We bucked his suggestion, but only by 2 weeks.
My opinion is if you want to keep your child(ren) involved, there's plenty of time after 20 weeks for US, and doctor's appts, and if the parents want them to see what the baby looked like at 9 wks, 16wks, etc., then save the pix and videos to show them after the baby arrives.
I must say that the whole announcing everything on facebook I do find a little ott at times, but I understand why some people do announce pregnancies. What I find more irksome is when people have been insinuating they are pregnant for weeks in every status update, and then expect shock when they finally announce it. I know we had relatively few problems in the grand scale of things but even so, I just would rather keep personal things personal. Ermm discounting my blog and the pink place, but that isn't quite the same....
Oh and I agree that there is plenty of time later on to involve your other children. Yes I would possibly consider telling them before early scans, but I wouldn't take them with me.
Actually, when I decided to involve my older daughter in the pregnancy right from the start, part of my motivation was "what if I miscarry?" I felt that the little one was part of the family for whatever time he was with us, and if I had miscarried, I would have grieved the loss of a member of the family. I think my daughter would have understood that her sibling was here for a little while, but left, and now mummy and daddy are very sad.
I also wanted this baby to be part of the "story" of our family right from the start, live birth or not. In fact, if I had miscarried, it would have been even more important to me to keep talking about the weeks or months we did have with him in my tummy.
But that's just me, your mileage may vary, and I completely understand the opposite reasoning, as well.
I think that, like perceval, I'd really want an older child of mine to know what had happened if we lost a younger sibling. I am not completely sure I'd even want to tell them at at the time - because I have not known in the past who I have wanted to tell immediately and who I should wait to tell.
But also although I don't really feel I should protect other adults from such news, I guess you do need to work out when children are ready to know and see things - and I'm not sure I'd want to have a fairly small (or even medium-sized, an age when they really understand death) child having to watch us look for, and not find, a heartbeat.
Post a Comment