For newly expecting parents, one of the most satisfying moments is watching family and friends react when you first tell them you’re pregnant. You’re dying to break the news for so long, and when you do, everyone goes absolutely over the moon for you. But as soon as the dust settles ... well, it never really settles. You’re perpetually peppered with questions about how things are progressing, and keeping the people you care about informed can get to be overwhelming pretty quickly. Looking at the experience through this lens was a major part of our inspiration to create the Sproutly app.
One particular story from a member of the Sproutly team really hammered this issue home, and helped stimulate some innovation around our product. Consider this, from Katie:
I admittedly loved the high from all the attention and excitement around sharing news that I was pregnant. When I went for my mid-pregnancy ultrasound, we found out for sure that we were having a baby girl. I immediately created a group text for all of my friends who were invested in the gender of my baby and let them know that they should start buying all of the pink things in the Tri-state area.
Except that in my haste to let everyone know, I forgot to add one of my long-time friends to the group text. She found out later that day when one of our other friends asked her if she wanted to go in on a gift for my baby shower. She was very hurt that I missed her in the text and that she hadn’t been able to share the moment. I felt bad, but I was also frustrated by her attitude.
Not two weeks later, something very similar happened. We announced the name we were planning on giving our baby, and I accidentally used that same group text, the one that excluded my friend. This time she found out at the baby shower when several of my friends gave me gifts with my daughter’s initials on them. Again, she was very upset. She accused me of not including her in my life now that I’m pregnant. Part of the problem was certainly that we had drifted apart a little since we lived so far away from each other, but this was the trigger for a major fight. I was angry that she didn’t understand the honest mistake, and she was angry that it wasn’t my absolute first instinct to tell her the latest news about my pregnancy.
In the end, we were able to patch things up, but fighting with one of my closest friends during my pregnancy was awful, and what was even worse was keeping track of everyone who needed to be told about all of the baby milestones. I didn’t really want to post everything on social media because it’s so personal but trying to make sure I remembered every person every time I had news was incredibly difficult, given the stress of everything else going on.
To top it all off, my cousin was also having a baby around the same time as me. This meant that some of my family members were constantly mixing up due dates, baby shower dates, registries, and genders (she had a boy, I had a girl). I never really thought that having a baby would be such a logistical nightmare before she even arrived!
Had I been able to use the Sproutly app during my pregnancy, it would have been so easy for my friends and family to follow my updates, and get notified, without me having to keep track of several group messages. Plus, my family would have been able to check who was having which baby so my cousin and I didn’t constantly have to clarify everything.
This app is so quick and easy to use and it’s private enough that you can keep your personal information within a group of people that you approve. It feels safer than social media, but it’s so much easier than trying to text or email everyone you care about.
We’re still getting a handle on being first-time parents but when we decide to take the plunge and go for another, this app will make a very hectic time just a little bit less hectic.
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