My husband would tell people, "look at this awesome app I put in my iPhone" and would show them a pregnancy app he was using to track the baby's development. It would take a minute to get a reaction but the faces were always priceless.

with my first one, we put pictures from our recent vacation in an album with our baby's first sonogram pic at the very end. with my second, i bought my daughter a "Big Sisters Rock!" tshirt and sat back and timed it. my in-laws read it right away. but my parents? after about 10 minutes of her right in front of their faces, i had to tell my mom to read her shirt!

The napkin idea is so cute. My brother & sister-in-law waited until Mother's Day and when they gave our mom their gift it was a pair of baby socks. Amazingly it took her a couple seconds to get it, but it was a cute idea too.

We were at a family beach trip (about 25 people), and I gathered everyone to take a group photo. Just before I snapped the picture, I shouted "I'm pregnant!". The photo that followed was priceless!

For my second, I got my daughter a big sister to be t-shirt and videotaped everyone's reactions as they read it.

For my mother's birthday, I wrapped up a package of Choco Baby with all the "choco" words crossed out. It included a note saying she'd get to hold the real deal on [my due date].

This was her face --> :O

Ha ha ha! :D

It was Christmas time and we gave my in-laws a gift certificate for 1 grandchild redeemable on our around August 31st. I thought My father in law was going to pass out.

I know everyone is going to think I am a grump, but I never have "gotten" the elaborate ways people tell that they are pg. It's such a normal part of life to have a baby. So many people act as though they are the only person in the universe to ever have a child. The way people post about every poop and pee on Facebook, spend a bazillion dollars decorating for a being that takes up the space of a watermelon, and fret over a name as though the universe depends on their child having a perfect and unique name (that only they can appreciate.)It's just such an odd idea to me to make such a huge deal out it (and I suffered with infertility.) I guess whatever floats your boat and makes you happy. Like I said, I am aware that I am going to come across as a grumple-stilt skin. I guess it's the mental health professional in me thinking about the narcissistic aspect of it all. I just think people need a little perspective.

I just told people, and they were excited and surprised and we all moved on.

I'm with you, funkhaus. No one cares as much as you do that you're pregnant. Just tell people.

What is that flatware? It's beautiful.

The flatware looks like David Mellor.

It's so fun to hear everyone's stories. Glad you like the idea! The flatware is Kate Spade.

For baby #1, we wrapped up a "grandma" picture frame for Christmas (with a paper that said, "I haven't taken a good picture yet, but I'll see you in July!"). She was speechless, and it got passed around to about 6 people before someone found words to say. Priceless, and captured on video! For baby #2, we made a shirt that said, "I'm going to be a big brother" and he walked up to his grandparents. Also fun.

My husband and I created a puzzle for our family to solve at Thanksgiving. We wrote out a twee little phrase about how happy we were to be gathering together with them for Thanksgiving and how awesome they all are. Then we divided it into bits and printed and cut out strips with pieces of the whole sentence on it, which needed to be overlapped with each other in order to form the final sentence. We distributed the bits after dinner and everyone had to come together to put everything in the right order. BUT! The way we arranged it left a few letters scattered about that DIDN'T overlap. When they finished we said, "Oh, but you aren't done yet!" It took them another 5 or 10 minutes to figure out what the secret message was hidden in the few non-overlapping letters...

"OMG SURPRISE BABY LOL"

it was AWESOME.

Oh! Here's the puzzle that we gave the family, I forgot my husband posted it in his blog.

http://www.extrareal.com/blog/?p=99

And what the solution looked like. :)

http://www.extrareal.com/blog/?p=133

We weren't anywhere near as creative as most of you folks are; just a card mailed to my parents that called them grandparents.

My mother had visited a few weeks before and had correctly guessed that my wife was pregnant, so they weren't overwhelmed with surprise. None the less, we got the last laugh on my smartypants mom when we informed them we were expecting twins. Ha! We got to surprise them after all.

We found out 5 days before Christmas. We couldn't keep it a secret from my parents so we put a little ducky receiving blanket in a box & a bib that said "I love Grandma" (there were NO grandpa things to be found!) & let them open it. They freaked out! I gave my brother & sis-in-law a picture frame. It said inside the frame, "Uncle John & Aunt Jane - I can't wait to meet you in August 2011" My brother's mouth gapped open. It was awesome. :)

We sent packages to each family with little booties in it and individual notes. We skyped with my family so we got to see them open the box and read the notes carefully. It was very cute. Our Christmas gifts were from then-on called the "baby box" on both sides of the family.

I actually never thought of doing something like this before, but after reading this post and the comments, I came up with a great idea: my father has been working on our family tree for a while and he has now a big diagram going a few centuries and generations back, so I thought about printing this tree (or part of it, it's huge) and adding another branch extending from me and my husband to a blank box with a question mark, and then giving it to my parents without saying anything.

@Sisterfunkhaus and @overture,

We do it because it's fun to surprise people and to see their reactions. Same reason people throw surprise parties and whatnot. Because it's fun!

@Mrs.Mack: My thoughts exactly! There are only a small handful of enormous life-altering events in a persons life. This is one of them, and it completely warrants an ushering-in of joy and surprise. Seeing my family light up like that, why would I want to pass that up? It's so exciting!

We told by gifting each set of parents a crystal Swarovski stork holding a bundle in it's beak. Pricey, but it's beautiful and proudly displayed in both households. It just so happened that it was my in-laws anniversary and my father's birthday right at the time when we were ready to share the news, so gifts were already in order.

If a new child joining a family isn't cause enough for excessive celebration, what is? Sisterfunkhaus and Overture, you're not completely right that no one cares about your baby like you do and it's unfortunate that you feel this way. I sympathize with people for whom this is true. I'm also a mental health professional and I encourage people to see things in perspective as well: that is, to see the true joy and meaning of life that comes with a child that is wanted and loved.
Mine and my husbands parents were no less thrilled and excited about our baby news than we were.

@Sisterfunkhaus

There are many acts of narcissism and greed in this world. Sharing the news of a pregnancy, however that may be, is not one of them. Implying that you somehow are justified in your statement because you
a) struggled with infertility and b) are a mental health professional points only to your narrow-minded perspective.

We did something similar to AmberM. When we went to our first OB appointment just before Christmas, our doctor performed a sonogram and gave us a copy. We asked if we could get extra copies, which he happily supplied. We framed the sonogram images with a little note saying "Merry Christmas, Grandma & Grandpa! Love Baby Smith." Our parents loved it and seeing them light up was the best part of our Christmas vacation.

For our first, I made cards that on the outside, asked our parents to pray a prayer, which was then included on the inside. We are born-again Christians, and the prayer is based from Psalm 139 - you are fearfully and wonderfully made. We included this as a prayer for our unborn child. We had our families open it on a particular day at a particular time, since we were living overseas at the time.

With our second, the older child wore a "I'm gonna be a big brother" t-shirt.

We saw our daughter for the first time the day before we closed on our first home. Since both my husband's family and mine live in other states, we took pictures of our house once we moved in and had decorated. We compiled a slideshow with the last photo being one of us - my husband and I holding our ultrasound photo. Getting to talk to my parents while they looked at the photos for the first time is one of my absolute favorite memories.

I can't remember what we did with #1? #2 - my husband had been out of town when I took the test and when my daughter and I met him at the airport we had made a sign that read something like" Jason D- proud father of 2!" He didn't get it at first - it had been a long trip.

#3 - I had my daughter draw a picture of what I would look like pregnant and it was a stick figure with a baby inside the tummy - printed it out and gave it to people (grandparents, etc.)

By #4 everyone was underwelmed with the news, ha! He was due in Sept - the same month as my dad's birthday so we went over to the grands house and my kids asked their grandpaw if he wouldn't mind sharing the month of sept with a new baby.

Everyone like to celebrate a new baby.

this is the pic that my daughter drew to announce: http://shannondowdell.blogspot.com/2007/08/guess-whats-different-about-mama.html

We were too excited. I have been trying for over two years. We just called every one of our thirty thousand close family members to tell them. I loved being able to say, "I'm pregnant." It will be my mom's first grandchild, and she showed it by immediately running out and making the baby a blanket. My mom doesn't do domestic stuff, let alone make anything that can't be eaten. It was so awesome.

We ordered a t-shirt off of Cafe Press that said "I'm going to be a big brother!" My son wore it when visiting with both sets of grandparents. I was surprised to find that both grandmas took a full minute or two to process it. The grandpas got it right away, though!

My husband and I live far away from both our parents; we sent them a package that included a onesie and a note that read "Coming in October." And then we waited for their gleeful phone calls.

Our parents returned the onesies to us when they came to visit; my mother-in-law had painted "I love you" on it, and my mother had embroidered a little house on hers.