Breaking the news... When is the right time?

You hear this discussion a lot in the world of pregnancy.

This post is going to be a wild ride, and will probably go off on a few tangents. I'll bake you cookies if you hang in till the end, I promise I'll bring it all together!

When is the right time to tell people? Traditionally, one waits until the 12 week mark when the risk or miscarriage has gone down considerably.

With the first pregnancy, we told people pretty much right away. Partly because we were so excited that we were practically exploding, and partly becasue I honestly think that neither of us truely understood how common miscarriages are. After all, I'm young, healthy, my mom had three healthy pregnancies, and I was doing everything by the book! Miscarriages happen, but it was unlikely it would happen to me.

The Miscarriage was a shock. But what was almost as shocking as the miscarriage itself was HOW MANY PEOPLE reached out to me to tell me they had gone through the same thing. Young, healthy women who had done everything right.

It's estimated that 20 to 25% of pregnancies end in a miscarriage. That's 1/4 or 1/5. That is a lot of pregnancies. Going into the first pregnancy, I had no idea just how common this was.

That's part of the reason I started this blog. When I was going through my first miscarriage, I felt like I was a failure. Like I was defective somehow. Like I was unable to make a healthy baby. To add insult to injury, it seemed that most everyone I knew was pregnant. So while people were complaining via facebook status of their morning sickness or their swollen ankles, here I was, unable to reach that point.

I can't tell you how much I appreciated people sharing their own personal stories with me. People who reached out and said "I've been there too". People I thought I knew well, but didn't know about that. The 1 in 4 number started to make more sense. I wasn't defective, I wasn't a failure, this happens a lot. I wanted to start this blog not only as a way to share my pregnancy with family and friends who want updates, but also because I HOPE that women who are pregnant for the first time might eventually read this and get an understanding of just how common miscarriages are.

My goal isn't to scare people, or put a dark cloud over the experience. My goal is for people to go into things with a knowledge of the possibilities so if they DO end up falling into the very high percentage of women who at some point experience a miscarriage, that they will know that they aren't broken or a failure or defective. I feel like miscarriages are pregnancies dirty little secret that no one wants to hear about or talk about until after it's happened. I feel like there is a lot of shame and guilt associated with it, and I want to help shine a light on how common and normal it actually is.

(That was the tangent I talked about earlier. Now back to the original topic!)

So if as many as 1 in 4 pregnancies end in miscarriage, when is the right time to tell people?

Well, there's no right or wrong answer. But I'll share my views with you anyways.

For this pregnancy, because I had just miscarried, my first reaction was to wait to tell people. I mean what if I miscarried again! Todd and I decided together that we wanted to tell our "support team". This consisted of our immediate family, a couple of very close friends, and the waitress at our local sushi restaurant. (Don't ask!) A couple more people found out along the way, mostly because they asked me straight out and I'm a pretty bad liar when put on the spot.

As the pregnancy progressed, I started giving things a little more thought. Why were we actually holding back this information? Why couldn't I allow my family and friends to share in the joy and excitement of the pregnancy, and in the loss in a worst case scenario? How would people knowing or not knowing make things any better or worse if we lost this pregnancy too?

After thinking about all these things, and remembering all the supportive and touching e-mails I got from my aunts and cousins after the miscarriage, it suddenly seemed less important to keep the information from people. At the same time, I felt like somehow "not wanting people to know" if I had a miscarriage carried a lot of shame... and shame perpetuates the feelings of guilt and inadequacy. At around 7 or 8 weeks I can honestly say that I personally was completely emotionally ready to tell people. I was tired of hiding, I was annoyed by the "Hush hush" shameful feeling surround my miscarriage, and I was tired of walking on eggshells. Everything I read, everything I was told was that it was NOT MY FAULT, there was nothing I could have done differently, and keeping this secret somehow made me feel not only like I couldn't really enjoy and celebrate this pregnancy properly but also like miscarriage was something to be ashamed of.

Ultimately though, this is not my baby alone, and I could tell that Todd had not reached the same emotional epiphany as I had. Mostly I think the difference was that Todd has a really hard time talking about the loss of our first child and I didn't. My pain wasn't amplified or reduced by talking about it. It hurt like a bitch, and nothing was going to change that but time. However, I understood and respected that for Todd, at least part of the fear was being asked by people how the pregnancy was going only to have to tell them that we lost the baby.

At the same time, we do both have grandparents who took this hard. My main thought was for Oma, who is naturally such a worrier, extremely empathetic and not in very good health. I didn't want her to be constantly worrying about whether or not I was going to lose this one, and if I did miscarry again, I didn't want her to have to deal with the emotions that come with it.

So we decided to wait, until 12 weeks, and after the NT scan.

The best advice I can offer people who are wondering when they should spread the news, is to listen to yourself. This is one of those many things about pregnancy (and eventually parenthood) that everyone will have an opinion about, but I think it's important to discuss it with your Significant Other and come up with a plan you're both comfortable with. Don't listen to tradition, don't listen to your neighbor or anyone else. There is no right or wrong way to do it, you just have to consider all the factors and decide what you feel is best for you.

Here are your cookies for making it all the way through!