I have a few friends who are currently pregnant. A couple of them are beyond the point of keeping it a secret, but one is newly so, and I am SO FREAKIN’ EXCITED I just can’t stand it. Anyhow, recently a couple of other moms and I were talking to one pregnant friend about how to be discreet in that first trimester, or however long you’re waiting to share your news.

I thought I was fairly discreet by just casually not drinking in those early weeks, but apparently many of my friends were suspicious… “We knew something was up when YOU weren’t drinking!” Gee, thanks! I mean, I know I live in beer city, and my girlfriends and I have been known to enjoy the occasional wine night, but was it really that unusual for me to decline an adult beverage?!? To be fair, most of our friends did know that we were trying to conceive, so they had reason to be be wary.

This shot was taken just a few days after we found out that I was pregnant. Shhhhh!

There are a few things you can do if you’re pregnant and you find yourself in a situation where you’d normally have a drink or two, like a holiday, concert, party, work function or just a normal afternoon at a local brewery. I did most of these when I was pregnant at one time or another, as we waited quite a bit beyond our first trimester to make it totally public, though at some point we started gradually telling close friends as we saw them. We made sure to tell those who know early that it wasn’t “Facebook official” yet, as there were people we wanted to tell in person or by phone, in a more personal way than finding out from a friend of a friend’s post that they tagged us in or something.

Anyway, here’s the list:

• The Tag Team: Works best at group outings or parties. If you have a partner or close friend who knows you’re pregnant, they can be your secret weapon in disguising your sober-ness in many social situations. Crack open a beer or order a drink from the bar, and at some point pass it over to them when you’re out of sight of the rest of the group. Have them take a swig or two. Repeat as necessary. Your ally will love you and the rest of your group will be none the wiser!
• The Empty Can: Works best anywhere you bring your own beer, or beer is served in cans. Get a can of beer. Dump it or have someone else drink it (see above). Hang on to the empty can and pretend like it’s always full.
• The Fill and Dump:* Works best in situations where no one knows you’re pregnant, but you’d normally just have one drink, like a happy hour with co-workers. Get a glass of wine, hang on to it for a while while you’re chatting and networking. Go to the bathroom, dump half of it in the sink. Hang on to half-full glass for a while longer. Go to the bathroom again and dump the rest in the sink. Done!
• The Decoy: Works best at house parties or outdoor drinking situations where everyone uses a koozie. Buy something non-alcoholic that comes in a can, like every pregnant lady’s favorite, Lacroix. Stash it in the back of the fridge or the bottom of a cooler. Every time you go get a drink, insert can into koozie discreetly. The koozie is a great disguise and you still have the satisfying sound of a can being popped open. (Note: If you favor liquor drinks, this can be easily done in a bar. Just go order your drinks by yourself and tell the bartender to make you something non-alcoholic like cranberry juice and ginger ale or soda water and put it in a glass they’d normally serve cocktails in.)
• The Good Samaritan: Works best if you’re with a small group bar hopping (or brewery hopping as we do here) by car. “I hear they’re really cracking down on checkpoints this time of year, and I have to get up early anyway to go (insert excuse here), so I’ll be y’alls DD tonight – but you owe me one!”

*Funny story about how this one failed for me. After my first bathroom/wine dump trip at a work function, I sat down with some female co-workers I’ve been working with for nearly 10 years, and they were talking about babies. One looked at me and said, when are you going to get pregnant? Then she immediately said, OH MY GOSH, YOU ALREADY ARE, AREN’T YOU!?!? – Some women just know, and they will out you!