Parents of teens: how did your kids react to a new baby?

I’m looking for some honest advice from parents or anyone who has gone through something similar.

I’m currently pregnant (13 weeks) and we have recently told my teen son and SD, both 14. Their reactions were really hard. Instead of excitement, they were upset, spent the evening crying, and pretty withdrawn still 12 hours later. Which is hardly normal for my son and I.

Logically I understand this is huge news for them and probably feels like their whole world is changing overnight. I’m trying to remind myself that their reactions might just be shock, fear, or uncertainty about what this means for their place in the family. But emotionally it’s still really painful to see my kids upset this badly.

We’ve always tried to create a home where they feel safe expressing their feelings honestly, so part of me is glad they didn’t feel like they had to fake excitement. At the same time, I’m struggling with how to process my own feelings while also supporting theirs and letting them know it’s okay.

Edited to add- our 4some relationships are wonderful. Outside normal teenage emotions and puberty changes over the years, nothing out of the norm within our friend group of families. Both kids are high level athletes in their own sport and very supported through out their years playing and will continue to do so. Our home life is great. Relationships between my husband and I has always been easy and we don’t even fight in front of the kids if we do need to have hard conversations. Each on our second marriage and strong knowing what we stand on with our selves and children. Each respective relationship between adult/child/step sibling/step parent is great, no tension or issues within our household to report in comparison to many of our ‘normal’ family peers we’ve been privy to hear about their teen troubles. It’s been 6 years all together under one roof. My son is with us full-time (sees his own dad weekly visit days custody/by my son’s choice now as his dad doesn’t work here) and his daughter is typical week on week off custody rotation. Both these arrangements were in place since they could walk and talk. We have the extra space in our home to accommodate a baby(and still host guests in separate areas of our home). Additionally they live a life above most their friends at school/sport so financial worry/childcare responsibilities is highly unlikely to be even on their minds at all.

For parents who have blended families or big age gaps between kids, how did you help older kids adjust to a new baby? And how did you handle the initial negative reactions without it damaging relationships?

They both have always been only children. Though my husband and I have been together since 2020. We have struggled through infertility for 3 years. This is no surprise to anyone other than the conception outside of our fertility clinic. It’s been a topic previous but we did not think we could be so lucky to do naturally.

Any advice on what helps teens feel secure during something like this would really mean a lot. I’m just at a loss and the shame I feel is confusing.

If you went through something similar, I’d really appreciate hearing how it turned out for your family.

Crossposted in family. New to Reddit. Thanks guys