"WIBTA if I announced my pregnancy as my husband’s 30th birthday gift?"

I (28F) and my husband (29M) have been married for 6 years. And for a large majority of those years we have been trying to have a baby. However, my infertility issues have brought us to the point of us reconsidering and looking into adoption and surrogacy instead, after years of IVF treatments and various other outlooks. Around two weeks ago a miracle occurred. I was pregnant!

I was ecstatic, and overjoyed to tell my husband, however I wanted to bring the news to him in a more elaborate fashion as this is something that is dearly important to him. After checking in with my doctor due to chances of me having pregnancy complications and planning the surprise it occurred to me that my husband’s birthday was also coming up around this time.

My sister (26F) and I (my sister and I have been good friends with my husband since we were children), have been tossing ideas around about his 30th birthday for a while. My husband’s family had never been big on birthdays and we wanted to make the occasion spectacular for him as due to complications in previous years none of his birthday gifts in the past have been as perfect as I wanted them to be.

I brought up the idea of me announcing my pregnancy to my husband as a gift as I realized I didn’t have the time to pull together the plans we had previously agreed on, but I had already started arranging plans for announcing the baby.

I thought it would be very special to him to combine the ideas of his birthday party and the baby announcement as we have been wanting a child for so long, and honestly it seemed better than the gift idea we previously had.

However my sister disagreed and told me I was selfish for wanting to make his birthday about me, and that I was a bad wife for not prioritizing the plans we had already agreed upon and changing it last minute. I argued that there was little time for us to even make the elaborate plans anyways, and my husband would appreciate my idea just as much as a grand party.

My sister told me by no means I should announce my pregnancy as a gift, and I would be the a-hole if I did. So, WIBTA?

EDIT: To clear up some confusion, when I meant announce, I meant to announce it privately to him afterwards as a gift as I do understand it wouldn’t be ideal if everyone were to find out at the same time! Also, my sister found out about the pregnancy with me as we were together when I heard from my doctor. (My husband couldn’t take me to my appointment that day)

What do you think? WIBTA? This is what top commenters had to say:

aamfbta said:

I don't know if you're making it about you so much, but I don't think that he should find out at the same time as everyone else. He's the father, for starters, and finding out you're about to be a parent can be a big, complicated feeling (even if you want to be a parent) and he deserves to not have to play it out in front of everyone.

I don't want to tell you two how to announce it, but it should be a joint announcement, and after 3 months when the risk of miscarriage is lowered. You're also assuming he wants everyone else to know right away.

It's great to tell your husband the morning of his birthday, and if you want to announce it together later then you can, but he should have a chance to absorb the information and bask in the moment with just you.

calling_water said:

Congratulations, but YTA. You say this is dearly important to him, so why haven’t you told him already? Stop trying to be elaborate. Stop withholding this important information because you want to make a splash. Tell him now.

deblas66 said:

I'm not sure you'd be an asshole but if I were your husband, I'd much rather be told ASAP to enjoy that moment with you. I don't think announcing it to everyone else and him for the first time would be nearly as special. I, personally, would feel a little upset that I found at the same time as everyone else when I should have found out 2nd. But you know him better so

thatpipwithpizazz said:

YWBTA, get him a regular gift to be given to him at the party so he can enjoy his moment on his birthday. If you are really wanting to announce this news as a gift, do it after the party when the two of you are alone.

She later shared this brief update:

UPDATE: Hi everyone! Thank you for all your comments and feedback, this has made me realize A LOT of things, and how in the end, I was being selfish to ignore the plans my sister and I had previously made for the baby idea instead, as one commenter put it “a baby is a gift, but not a birthday gift.”

Thank you for helping me realize this, I think I’m going to tell him very soon as he should’ve known much earlier.