Wee Announcement

January 26, 2009

Being a writer, I've spent a great deal of time thinking about the exact words I will use to announce my pregnancy.

There are some people who say "knocked up," "bun in the oven," "in the family way," "preggers," or "expecting." On that last one, when I got an email from a friend announcing, "We're expecting!" I had to squelch my inner snark to keep from responding, "Expecting what?"

(It's a valid question. If they were Dylan fans, their response might have been, "Rain." You never know.)

There are even people who still say, "With child," which would be so Biblical were it not for the fact that in my head, it's so Herdmann. because "great with child" is the Virgin Mary's pregnancy was described to the keckler Herdmanns in The Best Christmas Pageant Ever.

I guess I've always favored the blunt "I'm pregnant." It's to the point and neither overly cutesy or coarse. Nor does it sound like something your dog might pick up after a rolling around in some shrubbery.

Then I had to consider how I wrote "I'm pregnant" to friends. For some, it was "I'm pregnant!" and for others it was "I'm pregnant." I don't know why I felt like using the exclamation point for certain people and not others. Maybe because an exclamation point can feel like an command. Something that says, "I'm excited and I ORDER you to be excited for me!"

On the other hand, does an exclamation point send the message, "We're very excited about this news and NO it was not an accident!" whereas the lack of one leaves the recipient of the news hanging and wondering why the announcer sounds so depressed?

(Not that ANY of my friends would be so ill-bred as to ask "Was it an accident?" or anything. Ahem. But listing the idiot things people say to a pregnant woman is for another day.)

Personally, I think exclamation points are way overused these days, so I tend to be minimalistic about them myself. Don't even get me started on multiple exclamation points, question marks, or the combination thereof.

Anyway, that's me. I'm pregnant(!), pure and simple.

So, how are you?