Anybody told their DH they were pregnant in a really bad way (like I did earlier)? Make me feel better

[SecondCityShark]

Found out this afternoon that I'm pregnant and had a major freak out. We use contraception and I firmly didn't want children right now.

But somehow, here we are.

So I was in shock for about an hour, and then I started crying hard, which I never do.

DH came in to see me ugly-crying and honestly, I think he thought somebody had died.

I feel bad for him because in the films, it's always a happy 'I'M PREGNANT!' or a woman handing over a positive pregnancy test in a gift-wrapped box or something.

Has anybody else royally screwed up the big moment as I did earlier?

Ok from a different perspective as a non guilty working mom here is what has helped

• accept that sometimes (many times) the kids come first and that’s ok. That took some time.
• kids don’t need you to plan fancy activities for them. My own mother was v professionally successful and she said, when you have time, just spend it with them. Read to them, lie on the floor with them. Don’t feel the need to bake and do crafts.
• have really solid secure reliable childcare. And be willing to pay good money for it if you can. This is like gold in the early years.
• have a frank and honest conversation with DH. Mine is entirely and uncompromisingly a feminist and an equal partner. He gets up, makes breakfast, gets the kids ready, does as much of the school run as he can, did his bit with homeschooling, is one of the few dads on the PTA (US version) and despite having an super stressful job, takes his parenting very very seriously (also I think is actually a better parent than I am). He has been willing to make sacrifices for my career and my comfort even though he earns considerably more than me. My career is not an add on. And he has always done his share of the housework before we had kids and certainly afterwards.

And despite this I have slowed down my career, mainly because son no 2 was a v difficult birth resulting in a prolonged neonatal stay and many readmissions and because DH and I made the decision to not have them spend hours and hours in daycare so he came back early 2 days a week, I worked part time and took a day off etc. So it’s been a compromise and at times parenting is an utter slog and at others a total delight. But we are sort of doing ok on the parenting/work/life balance.

@katnyps I'm sorry you've never came to terms with you decision . I don't think there is ever a wrong decision.. Its whatever felt right at the time. However, I do think once you've experienced the love of having your own child then a termination/loss can be harder to come to terms with as you know how much love you have/would have had for them. Sending hugs hun xx

I'm so sorry for your loss @Kona84

Thank you so much for all those pointers @ChaBishKoot I really appreciate you taking the time to give me all of that advice. That's all really very practical and useful. Will genuinely help with my thoughts over the coming days.

Any way you can just plough on with the work stuff? Could your husband be primary carer for the first year or so and support you to get where you want to be?

But equally. It’s totally ok to say this isn’t the right time.

Wed been trying for years, I was taking fertility drugs - there was still no big romantic reveal.

I marched back into the bedroom, woke him up by sticking a recently peed on stick in his face and yelled ‘DOES THIS LOOK LIKE A CROSS TO YOU’. We cycled through the fact that it might be, almost definitely wasn’t,
could possibly be, but on reflection absolutely wasn’t for a bit - I peed on a few more sticks and sent him out to buy other options, and even when it was pretty conclusively positive we agreed ‘not to get our hopes up’ and didn’t really talk about it again until the next day when we repeated the cycle.

I am always baffled by the threads talking about all the lovely and inventive ways people plan to reveal pregnancies - I can’t imagine having that much optimism and hope it will all work out that you could come up with these amazing announcements. That’s not a criticism, I’m just not wired like that.

You have time by the sound of things and a supportive partner - please be kind to yourself - you’ve had a shock and it’s scary but you have options.

Spent three years trying to get pregant, 2 early MCs, many many sticks peed on and much disappointment so that when I did actually get pregnant with my son I just showed my then-partner the stick at about 6am while he was still in bed.
He made a sympathetic noise, rolled over, paused and then sat up and said “Wait was that one positive?”

Not exactly a storybook way to announce it. I think it’s pretty normal to not have a big romantic reveal.

@SecondCityShark

Thanks all, this is making me feel better

I'm going to give it some real thought over the weekend. It's a really bad time in my career for this to happen, but that feels like a brutal and callous reason not to go through with it. Really conflicted.

@Smartiepants79 he was great actually. He smiled so he was happy but we've talked for the past couple of hours and he says he's honestly happy to support me in whatever choice I make. We are actively looking at the pros and cons and thinking through how it would work if we went through with it.

I feel for you. No man ever has to consider whether it's the right time in his career to have a child. It's a very tough decision.

I've had two unplanned pregnancies; one is DS (contraceptive failure) and the other I had an abortion (blatant stupidity, lack of contraception).

With DS, we were just married and we had been firmly telling people not to expect grandchildren etc for a while. I'll be honest that I was devastated when I took the test. DH was working abroad so I was alone when I took the test. I called him in hysterics while he was on a tram with a group of colleagues... I have no idea what I said to him but apparently he was trying to keep a straight face while also supporting me and it was really difficult because I was just sobbing and making no sense. Calmed down, called the midwife unit at the hospital and went in for a chat about my options - they gave me an 'early' scan the next day as I hadn't had periods while on the pill so had no idea about dates.... and I was 22 weeks. I had no symptoms other than going off the taste of coffee and alcohol (+ them making me feel anxious), so luckily I'd cut out both of those early on.

With the pregnancy I terminated, I took the test at 4am and left it in the bathroom for DH to see when he got up. Before I even spoke to him that morning I'd called the clinic in our town for an appointment. There was no way my mental health could have handled another child at that time and I was sure of the decision (it was incredibly difficult emotionally, but it was the right thing for our family).

OP, there is no perfect time to have a baby, but if you are not sure about having one - call to make an appointment either with your local midwives or local abortion provider, both will be able to talk you through your options and give you support to chat about any worries you might have about motherhood/terminating. They really are great and non judgemental. Good luck!

I kept getting really faint lines on Internet cheepies.. Was convinced it was a bad batch so made my husband pee in a cup so I could test his wee and see if a line still came up!!! It didn't so we knew mine were actual lines haha. That's how I told him!!

Our second baby was planned. I came downstairs with the test saying 'yay, it's positive'. DH was holding our crying then 16m old and just muttered ffs under his breath. A beautiful moment.

@Spotthedog91 thank you - yes that's it I think. I have just felt in retrospect that it was all too quick, easy and I was certainly not fully aware of what I was actually doing at the time.

Ugh, sorry for being a downer! Do what your gut tells you is right Op, once you have all the facts.

I had a 17m old and a 4 month old.... and was on the mini pill. Period was 2 days late so at 4am feed with baby thought 'oh I have a left over test , I'll just put my mind at rest'

It went pink. Shit Shit shit.

Crawled back into bed and prodded Dh. 'Are you awake?' 'Uhh?' 'Are you in a good mood?' 'Uhhh?' 'I'm pregnant'
'Oh God!' and with that he rolled back over asleep.

In the morning he rolled over towards me and said ' I had the most terrible dream' Looked at my face. 'It wasn't a dream was it?!' ' No...'

Yeah I ended up with three children under two and a half.....

And it was absolutely fine.....:)

I told my DH at East Croydon train station, honeymoon baby. It wasn’t the most glamorous of locations to tell him!

I dont know who I thought I was when telling DP I was pregnant with DC1. I put the tests in a box and handed them to him, ribbon and everything. Like I was presenting him the future baby jesus. I laugh at the awkwardness now.

Second pregnancy was after 5 days of me constantly hating DP, we were arguing about something stupid that I was blowing out of proportion. I thought I need to do a test, was positive so I went in to the front room (we had just been arguing) and gave him the test, he said "ohhh thank fuck for that"

My pregnancy was planned but I still didn't manage to do a big reveal to dp - I woke up at 5am, threw up, did a pregnancy test, then woke dp up to ask if he could see a line. He groggily said 'yes' and rolled over and went back to sleep.

Reminds me of when I was in labour with #3. I woke at 5am feeling contractions and he disturbed so I said to him that labour had started.
At about 9:30am he sat up and said, "did I dream you said you were in labour?"

Tbf with #1 I'd woken at 1am, excitedly woken him and we'd not got back to sleep, which was a really stupid idea, because #1 was born at 7am the next morning so there was a long way to go. #2 wasn't quick either. Even with #3 he managed to go and do a 3 hour exam in the afternoon before we slowly got ready to go into hospital.

My worst one was when we'd already got 3 kids and were not in a good place all round with his job, my permanent exhaustion, both depressed. We were both worried, my period was late, so I took a test. It was negative so I left it on the bathroom windowsill for him to also feel that relief. I went back to bed and told him, phew, it's alright, it's negative. He was so relieved by this that he leapt out of bed to go to the loo for a long sit. Then came back, ashen. He said, "What do you mean, there's a line!". We both freaked out.

I do understand it from both sides. I have 3 kids, but had been told I was infertile even before we got married, and had multiple miscarriages before and between pregnancies. 1/3 of my pregnancies have resulted in births. This pregnancy ended in an early miscarriage, just when we'd got our heads round being able to cope.

How old are you. That would be a deciding factor for me.

PS. I don't know what you do of course but you don't need to take a long maternity leave! If your partner can take more time off (sounds like financially you will be ok?) then you could take your recovery time and go back after 3-6 months. I started doing 1 day per week after 3 months and was back full time at 7. It wasn't easy - and you may have a more difficult baby - but you don't automatically have to take a year or be the primary carer (even if breast feeding).

Oh @Gentleness you must be an incredibly hardy soul to have suffered through so many miscarriages and come out of the other side of this I never do the flower emoji!

I woke DH up (he’s not a morning person, it was never going to go well), waved the positive test under his nose and said “how would you like to be a dad again”? He muttered “not yet thanks” and turned over to go back to sleep. “Oh” I said, not quite sure what to do next. To be fair, DC1 had literally only just had his first birthday at that point but it wasn’t quite the reaction I was hoping for - although he’s grown fond of DC2 over the 22 years since she was born

DC3 was a complete surprise and I think we both said “oh fuck”. Family planning has never been our strong point.

When I found out I was pregnant with No2, No1 was only 5 months old. I showed DH the positive test and he said "oh where did you find that? I didn't think you kept it..."

Then I had to explain it was a new one. DS2 arrived 13 months and 4 days after DS1.

Oh op, don’t fret re ‘the big reveal’ - it never plays out like the movies! I waited till dh got home from work and said ‘hey, guess what, I’m pregnant!’ - ‘oh, great’ he said, barely looking up. I asked, slightly shocked & disappointed if he wasn’t surprised - ‘we’ve been having unprotected sex and shagging like bunnies, it’s hardly unexpected’ he said😮 - #romancetotallyblown 😆🙈

We had been trying forever, I was giving up hope. He knew I was going to the bathroom to do the test. I came back in and told him I was pregnant. He misheard and said oh nevermind there’s always next month. To which I replied ‘no you tit I’m pregnant!’. Definitely not a cutesy moment like in the films.

Dd was 6 months old when I found out I was pregnant with ds. I was peeing a lot and just knew. I took a test straight away and it was positive. Our opposing football teams were playing and it was a draw. I told dh that he had scored (crass I know) and then promptly burst into tears as his face lit up when I showed him the test. Poor dh was excited at the thought of another baby whilst all I could think about was how I had let dd down, how it could have happened (on the pill), whether I would be able to physically do it (had a section with dd) and whether I should have an abortion. It took a few weeks before I decided to go ahead with the pregnancy. It was hard work and took a huge toll on my body but he is a joy, I just wouldn't have planned it that way. Good luck with whatever you decide x

I left it on the kitchen side for when he got home and pointed to it saying "would you look at that! Can you fucking believe it?!"

Not very romantic.