when do you tell?

I talked to a friend today and he mentioned that his wife is pregnant. It's early days yet, so they're not telling people, but I don't see him very often so he did tell me. (First baby...very exciting!) I guess they'll do like most people and go public when the first trimester is safely over.

On the net, picking your moment to tell some news involves a whole new level of analysis. No matter how anonymous (or limited in audience) you think your blog is, once you put something on the internet, you better be cool with the world knowing it, because once it's out there, well, it's out there. Romance is a good example here, because if you talk about dating someone, then you end up 'having' to blog the break-up if it happens, if only to signal that people should no longer ask how said romance is going.

You also have to deal with comments. This is true in real life, too, which is exactly why another friend has been keeping her romance on the downlow for months. And if you've ever been a part of a Mormon (or any closeknit religious) community, you'll understand how that goes. Everyone's always waiting for an announcement, even if you are nowhere near making one.

So most people want to get that 'first trimester' safely over. Nemesis introduced Gentleman Friend not too long before their engagement, but we all knew he was significant back when his photo appeared. I thought when Riftgirl and her beau joked about 'doing it for Obama' they were talking about sex. Seems now that 'it' was getting themselves hitched. The blog world had to wait a whole month for that news (totally worth the wait). I can really understand that though. They both have a relatively high profile on Youtube, etc, and share a lot of their personal lives, so it must have been really nice to have something special and secret they just enjoyed for a while alone before they told the world.

So what do you think? Do you blog about romance? If you do, what's your equivalent of a romantic 'first trimester' you want over before you hit the interwebs with heart-shaped news? What other kinds of news would you wait a while to blog?