BellaOnline Forums Health and Fitness Pregnancy Telling The World

Hello everyone. I'm the new pregnancy editor for Bella Online and I'm starting a new thread on this forum.
The question is : Should you tell people you're expecting before 12 weeks?
I would love to hear your opinions and stories. Remember, there are no right or wrong answers, just opinions. Feel free to post. Let everyone know you're there. Also, if anyone wishes to send me a message about topics they wish to discuss on forum, or any article they'd like me to present on Pregnancy, then also, please email me.

pregnancy@bellaonline.com

I definitely do not think you should tell anyone, except your spouse of course, that you're pregnant until after 12 weeks. I say wait until you're closer to 16 weeks. The reason I say this is I know someone who I worked with (she's now pregnant with twins!) and when she first got pregnant she told everyone because she had been trying for a long time and got really excited. Well at 12 weeks, I believe, she had a miscarriage. The second time she got pregnant though she waited until she was closer to 16 weeks and I believe she's coming up on 20 weeks now. Miscarriages are so much more common I think then a lot of people realize. I mean another friend of mine who is at around 6-7 months had a miscarriage before she got pregnant this second time. I think it's just better to be on the safe side.

With my first pregnancy, I was terrified. I'd been brought up to believe that you didn't have kids until after you were married and yet here I was, pregnant and not even engaged. We hadn't even been trying, in fact i was on the pill. I had to tell someone and I told my mother. After her initial shock, she was overjoyed, but just one week later, I miscarried.
That relationship ended.
After I married, we began trying and I fell pregnant after about eight months. We told our family and again a week later, I miscarried.
I truly felt cursed.
So when i conceived my third pregnancy, we decided not to tell anyone until we'd had our first scan at 13 weeks. The danger period was over and everthing looked fine. Then we told people and showed them the scan.
We did the same in the next pregnancy and again in the next.
I think it can depend on your circumstances and who the people are that you are telling. For instance if its family, you might tell them earlier than your bosses at work.
I really think its down to past history, health and family circumstances.

i have a 10 week old little boy. i told me family first when i was 7 weeks. i was working as a nusring assistant so i had told my boss, who of course later fired me due to me being pregnant. I felt comfortable telling me family, since we were split down the middle due to my parents divorce. o thought it might bring us closer, esp me and my father, and it has. i think if u are comfortable then u can say somthing before 12 weeks, but if i decide to have another one, id wait. sorry to hear about ur mishaps.

I'm somewhere between 12 and 16 weeks I have a ultrasound on friday. we told mom frist and the whole family knows now. In my case, if something should go wrong I want my entire support group there I hope I'm right

Hello all,

While my man and I told everyone right away, I have to say if I could do it again I would have waited until I was at least past the first trimester. We found out very early, I was only a couple of weeks. Then I started bleeding a couple of weeks later, thought there was a problem, went to the ER and found out there were two! Now, three weeks after that, I found out I have lost my babies. I just found out yesterday that there has been a cord accident, and I had to tell my family that they are gone. Everyone was so excited, gearing up for two little ones. Now they are all hurt by our loss. If I could take it back, I would have waited until I knew all was well FOR SURE! Having to tell loved ones that the babies are gone was like hearing it all over again myself everytime I have to say it. It was so exciting to finally be pregnant and have such news to tell, but I wish only me and my man knew, I think now that it could have been even more special to share such a wonderful secret together until we got through the fragile time.

Thanks,
Lindsay

Lindsay,

I'm so sorry for your loss. I hope you'll be able to find the comfort and support that you need to get through this experience, and I know there are a great group of readers here who so appreciate you sharing your insights.

It can be a hard call on how soon to tell family and friends about a pregnancy -- but don't be hard on yourself! It was very natural to want to share your happiness with everyone sooner rather than later. And I suspect that you would have needed and wanted the love and care of those folks during this loss, whether they had known about the pregnancy in advance or not. Take care and all the very best to you and yours.

Sarah M
pregnancy editor

The odds of having a miscarriage are extremely high before 12 weeks. It is best not to tell.

As far as my personal experience, I miscarried during my 12th week! I had just announced to the world that I was having another baby, next day...I wasn't. It was tough to hear congratulations and sympathies so close together.

I waited until I was 8 weeks pregnant and we told people after I had gotten a sono and was told everything looks great. At the 12 week scan we were told the heartbeat had stopped. It was devastating to deal with and to deal with telling people over and over again (especially those coming up rubbing my stomach asking how everything was going on down there) but I understood they felt worst when I told them our bad news. Our family and friends were incredible in just being there and we both sought consolation in their sympathy. When I got pregnant again right away, we thought we could avoid all of that by not telling anyone until I was past the 12th week. I found out at the 8 week mark that I had lost another baby. My husband and I were in shock but because we did not tell anyone I was pregnant, so we did not have anyone to share our grief or to console us in our time of need. We isolated ourselves because trying to put on a front that every thing was ok was worse than we could imagine. My husband and I were slipping into a depression and avoiding each other because emotions were too raw and we could not help each other.
If you have a strong support surrounding you whether it be friends or family which we are blessed with both, let them be there for both. If they are truly sincere, they will rejoice in your exciting news of pregnancy with you, and console you and be there for you in your time of need if something were to go wrong. As hard as it may seem to tell people of your sad news, it is harder to pretend nothing existed at all.

There's another reason besides the possibility of miscarriage -- compassion for those whom you tell and who have to wait and wait and wait and wait until you deliver! Even when I told people that I was 16 weeks pregnant, that dreaded question "Haven't you delivered yet?" came 6 - 8 weeks before the due date!

An exception might be to soften an awkward moment. If you always have a glass of wine with friends when you dine out, and all of a sudden you don't, they might wonder if you're an alcoholic and then wonder if they should be drinking in front of you!

Or, if someone asks you to go white water rafting or engage in some activity that you normally would but obviously would not when you're pregnant.