When a woman learns that she is pregnant, assuming this is something she accepts or desires, she's likely to announce the pending baby to everyone she knows, her husband/boyfriend of course, her coworkers, her family, her friends. Now, a certain degree of excitement and an air of congratulation is expected.
However, it turns out that everyone wants to be involved from this point on, not just to congratulate or engage in well-wishing, but to be, or at least feel, involved. A Panicky Expectant Father will go out of his way to baby-proof the house and might be on a hair trigger, e.g. his wife says "ow" over something innocuous, and he believes that something is wrong or that labor has begun, depending on how far along she is. He will probably ask her on a regular basis "Are you feeling alright?" Friends and relations might start proposing the "perfect" baby names, or prognosticating the upcoming bundle of joy's gender well in advance (and before ultrasounds or genetic tests are even feasible, provided they're something that exists in the setting). The parents of the husband or especially the wife will be ecstatic, sometimes even forgetting that they disapproved of their offspring's romantic partner. Expect people to feel the mother's abdomen, saying they can feel the baby moving. People will offer all manner of home-remedies for things like Morning Sickness, swollen ankles, and easing the pain of delivery. Co-workers might start a Workplace Betting Pool on the date of birth, gender, and other aspects of the pending delivery. And of course, there are those who have been there before to offer "helpful" advice on does and don'ts, such as making sure that the expectant mother avoids alcohol and tobacco, even forbidding others to smoke in the general vicinity. And one or more characters may be sent on an errand to get items to satisfy those Wacky Cravings. Of course all of this attention can be exhausting and wearying for the parents, especially the mother.
Children being excited about impending siblings is to be expected and doesn't count as part of this trope, nor it's inverse trope of Infant Sibling Jealousy.
Some may be pressed into service helping the expectant couple move to a bigger living space or preparing a nursery. If the expecting couple is unwed, a Shotgun Wedding may ensue. If the father is unknown, (such as a One-Night-Stand Pregnancy) attempts to find him, or at least Give the Baby a Father, with someone offering an Honorable Marriage Proposal may occur.
This can be Played for Laughs, as well as for drama. Many of the things people do for the expectant mother can be cringeworthily hilarious (especially if involving a Lamaze Class) and fall into Funny Moments, as well as Heartwarming Moments.
One of the potential causes of Baby Fever Trigger. Could happen in a New Baby Episode. Compare Babies Make Everything Better. May overlap with Proud Papa Passes Out the Cigars.
Examples:
- My Love Story!!: When Yuriko Gouda, who is in her forties, announces that she's pregnant, her husband asks her daily, if calmly, how she's feeling. Her son Takeo, a Gentle Giant of a man, keeps trying to prevent her from lifting anything too heavy (to her protests), and Takeo's best friend and neighbor, Suna, politely offers to help carry her groceries (and points out he's not as gung-ho about it as Takeo when she says "Not you, too!") Even Takeo's girlfriend, Rinko, offers a ward for safe childbirth to Yuriko. And when it comes time for delivery, Takeo carries his mom from her hospital bed to the delivery room when Yuriko let another woman go ahead of her.
- Spider-Woman: Vol. 6 opens with Jessica Drew seven months pregnant and being thrown a maternity leave party, with the attendees equally happy for Jessica Drew and curious about who the father is. While Jessica complains to Peter Parker about the party, he calls her on it.
Spider-Man: Not fooling me with those grumps, Jessica Drew. You feel the love. You love the love.
- The Walking Dead: Inverted. When Rick and Lori announce the latter is pregnant, the survivors are shocked and try to talk around the situation as much as possible, because they have no idea of how to care for a baby or help Lori's needs in the apocalyptic setting.
- Takes a truly unfortunate turn in the now-infamous issue #200 of The Avengers. Carol Danvers is mind raped in Limbo by Marcus, son of Immortus, into falling in love with him and he impregnates her with his own essence. He is born on Earth and rapidly ages to adulthood. He has to return to Limbo to survive and Carol goes with him. The Avengers are very cheerful about the pregnancy and even give Carol a friendly send-off — though it has generally been assumed since that they were also Mind Raped into going along with it. Chris Claremont wrote "By Friends — Betrayed!" in the following Avengers Annual #10 to give Carol some much-needed catharsis by giving a "The Reason You Suck" Speech combined with What the Hell, Hero? to all of her teammates:
Carol: ... Wanda, I never wanted to see you — any of you — again. I hated you. Because when I needed you most, you betrayed me. [tears up in quiet anger] There I was, pregnant by an unknown source, running through a nine-month term literally overnight — confused, shaken to the core of my being as a person. A person, a woman. I turned to you for help, and I got jokes. The Wasp thought it was great and the Beast offered to play teddy bear. Your concerns were for the baby, not for how it came to be — nor of the cost to me of that conception.
- Peanuts: During the arc where Sally was born, Charlie Brown passes out chocolate cigars to his excited friends, with Snoopy even participating and remarking that this should happen more often.
- Carry-On (2024): When Nora's pregnancy is discovered, Ethan is anxious and stays up all night doing research, but is still excited enough to text his best friend, Jason. Jason goes onto spill the beans to all of their coworkers in his excitement, irritating Ethan, but exciting everyone else; when confronted, Jason insists that people need to have something to be happy about, and that everyone being excited for them isn't a bad thing. Even his boss, who is shown to be snarky towards him, congratulates him on the news and later uses the baby to convince Ethan not to kill him, reminding him that his kid will be impacted by his actions, an appeal that does get Ethan to put the gun down.
- The Fantastic Four: First Steps: When Johnny Storm and Ben Grimm learn that Reed and Sue are expecting, they immediately are thrilled at the prospect of becoming the world's best uncles to their impending nephew, Franklin. And Reed goes out of his way to, as his best friend Ben Grimm puts it, "Baby-proof the planet". And media broadcasts speculate about the baby having powers and what they might be.
- Spice World: When the Spice Girls' heavily pregnant friend Nicola walks into their rehearsal, the girls all rush over to chat to her, and to feel her bump; and Emma excitedly says "it kicked!". Mel B says she feels broody, and an Imagine Spot of the girls as mothers is shown. They are interrupted by the music director reminding them of the small matter of their extremely live gig on Saturday.
- Farming Life in Another World: Lulucy, being a vampire is surprised to learn she's pregnant. It's beast-girl Sena who comes to the conclusion when Lulucy admits she's been feeling ill and craving sour foods, and giant spider demon Zabuton was already aware showcasing a set of baby clothes she'd made before Lu is even aware of her situation. From that point on, the whole of Great Tree Village shows up to offer support and advice, such as the lizard men offering to let Lulucy drink their blood, the Inferno Wolves bringing her a freshly killed Killer Rabbit, Lastismoon offering a magical amulet for healing, and even Hakuren offering to peel apples for her, while her husband, Hiraku, asks her daily if she's feeling alright. Sena even tries to hold Lu's hand to comfort her during the delivery.
- Red Sky In The Morning: The whole family is excited about the arrival of the new baby, and they argue about what to name him. Anna suggests giving him four names, as they all want different names, until the father says that he has the last word, and names him Benedict, meaning "blessed". Unfortunately, Benedict is born with hydrocephalus, and his head is twice as big as it should be.
- Warrior Cats: Though the arrival of new kits is generally treated as routine and doesn't get a lot of fanfare, when Whitewing is giving birth, there's shown to be commotion taking place outside as the warriors chatter about the kits, as well as the virtues of Whitewing herself, before they officially announce the arrival of Dovekit and Ivykit. Because even he is around when this is happening, Jayfeather gets a "Eureka!" Moment regarding the third cat of the prophecy, realizing that it might be one of the new kits.
- The Big Bang Theory: In "The Fermentation Bifcuration", Sheldon, of all people, decides to treat Bernadette to a special session of Dungeons & Dragons to celebrate her pregnancy, as well as giving her non-alcoholic sparkling apple cider, and a series of toast, including Star Wars toast.
- Coupling: When Susan reveals she's pregnant, Steve (the father), Patrick, and Oliver attend the birthing class with her (though Patrick, with his long standing reputation of bedding many, many women, pauses to make sure he doesn't recognize any of the pregnant women in the room, first), as well as the Attention Whore, Jane. Steve actually goes on one of his famous long-winded rants about the benefit of taking painkilling epidurals during the delivery versus drug-free pain management techniques,
- M*A*S*H: In "Mail Call Again", Col. Potter gets a letter from home telling him he's about to be a grandfather. The whole of the 4077th starts a Workplace Betting Pool on the date of birth and sex of the baby, and are delighted to hear the news of Potter's new granddaughter. Even Maj. Houlihan, who "doesn't approve of gambling" is willing to participate when she learns it's Col. Potter's grandchild. To almost no one's surprise, Fr. Mulcahy wins the betting pool, explaining that he knew a bit more about "conceptions" than the rest of them.
- Modern Family: At the start of season four, Gloria gets pregnant with her second child (first child with Jay). When Jay finds out about the pregnancy on his birthday, he calls it the greatest news he's ever gotten. Even Jay's ex-wife Dede, who always fights with Gloria, gets excited about the baby in a later episode.
- Night Court: Throughout Season 7, Christine is pregnant, and the whole of the court staff is delighted to be a part of the process, with Dan, Harry, and Bull even attending the birthing class that Christine is attending (though she eventually chooses Roz as her birthing partner). They also plan and rehearse emergency drills for getting Christine safely down from the seventeenth floor to the hospital. All of it turns out to be for nought, though, when Christine gets trapped in an elevator with Harry's oddball father, Buddy, and another man. Buddy has to help deliver the baby while Art tries to get the elevator working again.
- Scrubs: When Carla is expecting, everyone is happy for her, and J.D. even helps Carla and Turk assemble the nursery, with he and Turk painting a mural on the wall of Optimus Prime and Megatron fighting.
Carla: Why is the ugly one firing into the crib.
J.D.: Oh, she did not just call him "the ugly one", not Optimus! - Sesame Street:
- In one episode, Gina adopts a baby and pretty much all of the characters happily sing in preparation for his arrival and bring him gifts. Even Oscar, known for his grumpiness, is looking forward to the baby's arrival (though that's partly because he's mistaken him for a Grouch baby).
- One arc involves Maria getting pregnant by her husband Luis. Her mother cries happily upon learning she will be a grandma, and all of Maria's friends are excited for the baby to be born. Eventually, Maria gives birth to a little girl named Gabriella, who everyone fawns over.
- Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: Zigzagged during one story arc. When Chief O'Brien is informing everyone that his wife, Keiko, is pregnant with their second child, everyone is happy, with Bashir offering to buy a drink with him, and Quark waxing nostalgic about his nephew Nog as an infant. Commander Worf, on the other hand, is alarmed, to say the least. When told it will be seven months before it happens, Worf says he will be "Away from the station at that time. Far away." This is because Worf helped deliver the O'Brien's first child back in Star Trek: The Next Generation's "Disaster", and did not have a good time of it.
- Doc McStuffins: Played with in "Baby McStuffins" - Dr. McStuffins isn't pregnant, but she and Mr. McStuffins are going to adopt a newborn baby. Her children Dottie (known as "Doc") and Donnie are very excited, with Doc wanting to learn to be a Cool Big Sis, and Donnie excited that he's no longer the youngest. When Doc tells her Living Toys, they're also excited that there's going to be a cute little baby in the house.
- The Flintstones episode "The Surprise" features Fred getting irritated thinking about kids after dealing with Barney's nephew. When his wife Wilma tells him that she's pregnant, Fred immediately goes to sleep, only to wake up after he processes the news. Cut to him jumping outside to tell the entire neighborhood that he's having a child.
Fred: It's true, folks, the Flintstones are gonna have a baby, and I want everybody in the whole wide world to know it! Yabba-dabba-doo!!!
- My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic: In "The One Where Pinkie Pie Knows", Pinkie has to keep the secret that Shining Armor and Princess Cadence are expecting their first child. When the news if finally revealed by the expecting parents, everyone is thrilled, with Twilight looking very forward to being an Aunt, and Pinkie relieved that she doesn't have to keep the secret any longer.