Finally getting that positive pregnancy test result can be absolutely thrilling.
Even while you’re still unwrapping the second stick to test again because this can’t be real, you’re thinking of the seven hundred Facebook friends who need to know, like, right now. You wonder exactly what your odds are for dropping your phone in the toilet if you attempt to call your husband/ mom/ best friend with your non-pee-stick-holding-hand.
In the three minutes it takes for stick number two to flash pregnant, you’ve already chosen the top contenders for your pregnancy announcement (definitely Prego jar or tiny FSU onesie. Or maybe dog and chalkboard? Wait… Big brother t-shirt? TOO. MANY. CHOICES. ). You even start the internal debate over whether you can force your friends to go to a Gender Reveal and a Shower.
Sigh. Except of course you can’t actually tell anyone. No way. You’re what, four weeks along? Totally not allowed. Everyone knows you have to hold in that giddy excitement, those plans and ideas and all that happy for at least another two months. Twelve weeks is the magic number, the “Safe Zone,” when you are allowed to tell–when the risk of miscarriage goes down significantly, and you don’t have to worry as much about embarrassing yourself by losing your baby and making your friends feel awkward.
Please just puke your guts out in secret and find a couple of months worth of excuses for not hitting up the Bloody Mary bar at brunch like all the other girls. Your job involves heavy lifting? You’d better quit because you can’t tell them. You are pregnant during football season? Sell those season tickets and develop a chronic illness, darlin’, because they’ll be on you like vultures if you’re tailgating sober. You’re the MOH in your high school bestie’s wedding? I hope you’re good at faking falls because Vegas bachelorette + open bar reception + hot pink taffeta is not going to keep your secret.
I know this sounds like a lot of work, keeping your pregnancy quiet. The thing is, it’s just for now, not forever. And if you give in to your joy and blab about it, you risk burdening all those you’ve told with your inevitable sadness, should you miscarry. And who wants to be THAT buzz kill, right? I mean, what kind of friend would you be, bringing people down like that?
Maybe you’re the kind of friend who would be there for someone if she were to lose her baby at eight weeks. The kind who would watch her older two and bring copious pasta dinners if she needed it. Or tell everyone to leave her alone about it and ease off for a week if that’s what she wanted instead. The kind who would be so excited, upon hearing the news of those two positive tests, that you’d send a text, an ecard, and an awesome onesie all within 24 hours. And then, if that baby were never to be born and that onesie never to be worn, you’d be just as devastated as you were excited. 
There’s a whole list of choice “Four Letter Words” we teach our children not to say. Yes, some of which have more than four letters, if we’re being all literal and stuff. They’re rude and harsh, and can be hurtful when we want them to be. We get embarrassed when our toddlers blurt them out in checkout lines. (“He was saying Duck, I swear. Quack, quack! Obsessed with ducks, this kid!”) We get upset when that other driver- who was Clearly In The Wrong- shouts them at us when the light changes.
Miscarriage is not among them.
Yes, it’s scary, yes it hurts, yes it’s a distinct possibility for every woman who ever gets that positive test. But we shouldn’t have to give in to that fear- the fear of What Will They Say If It Happens To Me- and let it rob us of the exhilaration of finally getting those two pink lines. And shouting it to the heavens, Lion King Style, if we want to.
I guess what I’m saying is, like with all the mommy wars, you do you. Tell who you’re comfortable telling when you’re comfortable telling them. Six weeks or fourteen, it’s your news and your prerogative. If they’re the kind of friends you’ll need for the rest of this beautiful, hard knock parenting life, they’ll be in your corner no matter what.
It doesn’t matter when you share the news. As the mother of a 9 y/o, a stillborn son at 32 weeks, and 5 miscarriages- I can honestly say I’m better off sharing the news early so that if I do experience another loss, my support system is there.
I used to try to understand waiting until the ‘safe zone’ as you called it, but I lost my daughter when she was 6 days old to a chromosome deletion, and I lost my son at 20 weeks pregnant due to a twist in his cord. My opinion has drastically changed. These losses were heart wrenching! Miscarriages are also devastating losses. I understand women used to be quiet about these because they felt they were to blame, but 60% of miscarriages are chromosome related. There is nothing to be ashamed of!! It reminds me of another article i read, “grief. The dirty little secret”. We are expected to hide our emotions. After grieving very openly for my two children, I would anticipate I would openly grieve a miscarriage too. It’s losing a child.
I don’t care when you share but I also think is dumb to encourage all women to share.
How I handle grief is very different from someone else. I had a friend who miscarried and regretted sharing early because she hated all the attention. I never shared mine until after the “safe” time because I am a private person and I don’t want to let the world know I am grieving. That’s mine and my family’s business.
I also think your statistics are wrong because women, like myself, don’t want to talk or think about our miscarriages and those reasons are our own. It isn’t our “dirty” secret.
I think we live in a time of oversharing and if you aren’t sharing then you’re “ashamed” and thats not true. If you want to keep things private, do it. Not everyone needs to know your triumphs or disappointments or grief. Not sharing is not a poor reflection of you or being shamed into silence. I am not shamed into silence, I want to be silent. Its my business. Not my friends.
Sorry for the rant, but I am irritated at the trend of “all miscarriages should be shared and you shouldn’t be ashamed”. Not sharing does not equal being ashamed.