Your next pregnancy: To tell or not to tell
One of the scariest parts of getting pregnant after a miscarriage is the fear that it might happen again. It permeates everything, and can be so strong that seeing that positive home pregnancy test may fill you with dread rather than joy.
Hopefully you have a good understanding doctor in your corner (if not, FIND one, ask your friends for recommendations) and a supportive partner.
But still, as the nausea starts to hit and you consider whether or not you can get away with leaving your pants unbuttoned, you wonder–should I tell anyone I am pregnant?
The first impulse is to keep it to yourself. Your conversations about the loss might have been too terrible and painful to consider going through again. Maybe you feel like a failure (though you shouldn’t) or worry you will be judged.
It’s natural for us to want to hunker down with our pain, fight it alone, and try to keep the glossy outside world separate from our grief. Maintaining a zone where you don’t have to think about a loss, where you can escape it for a few hours, is a legitimate reason to keep the information from coworkers or bosses.
But I do think you should reconsider not telling friends and family. Imagine yourself, 25 years down the line, with a daughter in your position. Would you not want to know? To hopefully offer some sort of ear, if not concrete help?
I know some of us have parents who are less than helpful. Our partner’s parents may be worse. But I am a big believer in pain shared being pain halved, and if you don’t let anyone know you are pregnant, then no one can help you in your dark days.
I also want you to consider this: if you knew you only had two weeks to spend with someone you loved–how would you want it to be spent? In secret, in shadow, just between you? It’s possible, and if so, then keeping the knowledge private might be the way to go.
But if you want hope, joy, and happiness to suffuse what time you might have, then let it all out. Greet this new baby into the world with all your heart, make memories, make scrapbook pages, and make a mini-life. You are not going to feel worse because you did this. Your heart cannot hurt any more than it will if you kept it a secret. But you will have had that happiness, and certainly those moments make the pregnancy worth it, no matter how it ends.
I understand the need to hide it. If you read my journal you’ll find I felt exactly the same way the second time around. But in hindsight, and that is what I share with you, I am glad I wasn’t able to contain it and told everyone. Because when the bleeding started, when the tests were abnormal, when I had to be on bedrest, crying, sure another baby would be lost, I had help. I had books, I had phone calls, I had caring. And me and that baby were surrounded with love, and that’s the best way to go out of this world.
Empty
Cradle, Broken Heart
