To tell or not to tell

We are pregnant. Again. After a disappointing, but not devastating, miscarriage at ten weeks last year.

Our eight-week visit with the previous pregnancy to the gynaecologist was extremely disappointing – it felt like we could see much less of this new baby than we did with our first-born’s scan. That is also when he told us that perhaps we don’t want to tell everybody about the pregnancy yet... was that his standard speech or did he notice something we didn’t?

At that stage I told him that it was too late – I had already told EVERYBODY and to me it made sense: if anything would go wrong, I would have a support system and not be sorry for myself all on my own.

Two weeks later that theory was tested. I have to say it worked – for me. I SMSed or called all my family and friends to let them know I had a miscarriage. Nobody thought less of me. My parents were a bit shocked, because there have not been miscarriages in our family, but they were supportive and helped us with everything we needed, like any other good parents.

Interestingly, few other people were completely shocked – most of them had miscarriages before or knew at least one other person who did. It’s just something nobody talks about. It sure doesn’t make a good dinner conversation topic! But it’s something that do happen, to a lot of people. According to www.babycentre.co.uk, 15% of all pregnancies end in miscarriage. And it doesn’t seem that doctors get too excited about even two miscarriages in a row – they’ll only get worried if there is a third one, depending on the circumstances, of course.

Obviously not everyone deals with miscarriage in the same way. I’m sure that if it was my first baby, I would have had a lot more issues to work through afterwards. What also helped me to cope quite well was that I read up on the topic, and it seems that there is nothing an expectant mother can do to prevent a miscarriage. You can put your feet up and rest, but apparently that will not prevent it.

If you have a healthy lifestyle during pregnancy, you can probably not cause a miscarriage – it seems that babies who are abnormal in some way tend to miscarry. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. I think it’s easier on us humans if Mother Nature sorts out problems like these in her own way, rather than us being confronted with a difficult decision later on when we do find out that there is something wrong with the baby.

So, do we tell everyone now again? At seven weeks? Obviously! Apparently other people can keep news like this to themselves, but I’m not other people. It has to get out! Yes, we also want to know whether we’ll have a boy or a girl as soon as possible!