Matt and I waited until my first trimester was almost over before we made the news of our pregnancy public. However, we didn’t keep it an absolute secret, and I wrote out my thoughts at the time with our reasons for telling some people on the very early side. Here they are!
I am writing this on June 5th, in my fifth week of my first pregnancy. While it is not yet public knowledge, there are many people who know what has happened, and I know that this is not the norm. So I want to write our reasons for sharing with so many people, unconventionally early, the exciting news that we’re expecting.
First off, I am well aware that there are no guarantees. If I didn’t chart my cycles I wouldn’t even be aware of the life inside me for at least a couple more days (or until morning sickness kicks in, whichever comes first). I recognize that the convention of waiting to announce pregnancy is often to protect the parents from spreading the news before the “riskiest” time of the pregnancy passes. I have witnessed the tragedy of pregnancies lost soon after making the news public, and I have been privileged to be trusted by a friend with the news of a pregnancy lost at just 5 weeks. At this point, Matt and I have not shared our news with anyone we would not also be comfortable to share the tragic news of a miscarriage, and that was our strategy, morbid though it may sound.
Truth be told though, while my head knows miscarriage is a possibility (not to mention everything that can go wrong from birth onward), my heart does not believe it, and we have been too excited to completely contain our happiness and the reason for it. Maybe we will regret this, and even now having told who we have, that desperate burden for someone to know has been relieved. I am excited to announce our pregnancy to the world, but I can wait and take quiet joy in eating well and taking rest and dreaming of the future. It has only been five days since I’ve known, and it still doesn’t feel completely real – I think nausea and fatigue will be a huge relief (for about 20 minutes and then I’ll take this back), because it will prove that I’m sharing my body with a tiny clump of cells that have me and Matt inside. It’s outrageous! And amazing!
I have dealt enough with anxiety enough to know it’s not worth it. It’s not always a choice, but at this point for me I am choosing not to fear the what-ifs, to embrace a miraculous gift in my life and trust that God is good. Whatever happens. This tiny little baby is real, as is our amazement and love, and keeping it completely secret while we go through whatever the next 3 or 5 or 7 weeks have in store just isn’t the right decision for us.