To not want my husband to tell anyone I'm pregnant?

[whiteslemonade]

Hi - new user here, asking for some perspective.

I'm 16 weeks pregnant, first child. It's taken me a while to get my head round the pregnancy - it happened much faster than I was expecting for various reasons, so although we were open to getting pregnant, it has been very disorientating for me and once I actually had a positive test I wasn't sure what I wanted to do. Anyway, we're continuing with the pregnancy and I'm now 16 weeks.

I haven't told anyone, apart from my line manager at work. We're geographically far from our families and haven't seen them since I was around 8 weeks, so obviously not showing, and I haven't got much of a bump yet anyway. I feel a really, really strong pull to keep this private for a while yet - hopefully until after the anatomy scan. Then I will start telling our Mum's etc. and maybe husband's siblings if I feel ready. I am a very private person anyway about things, I don't want people to know until we know the baby is okay (or at least we know as much as we can until it's here), and this feels like a time for me and my husband to adjust to this stage of life. I can't explain how I feel, I just feel a need for this to be our business for a little longer still.

My husband really wants us to tell our Mum's and his siblings. He thinks they will be very hurt/will want to support us/will be confused, and that to him is more important than my comfort and privacy. I have read/seen that some people don't announce to anyone until they've given birth, so waiting until 20 weeks doesn't seem that bad! It's starting to cause problems between us as he is fixated on this, says it feels like a lie whenever he speaks to his mum or I speak to mine.

I think at this stage I'm the one who has the final say, as I am the one going through it. Any opinions? What can I say to him to make him understand?

Won't somebody think of the MEN?!

Jesus Christ, I have heard it all on this thread.

OP's husband can state what he wants, of course he can. If OP says no, in this case, he should listen. As we're talking about her body.

As OP has posted here, I am guessing her husband is not wanting to respect her wishes, but thinks his wish to tell his mother should override that.

Yes, but it's not about you, in that instance. You're not the one having the baby. Your feelings are not paramount.

Personally I would be happy with being told whenever my daughter/DIL felt ready. I would hate to think someone felt pressured to share the news earlier than they wanted to for fear of offending me. How awful.

Errrrr no. The man's role is a supportive one. Supporting his pregnant wife/partner. This means listening to and respecting her wishes with regards to the pregnancy.

No, it’s to work in partnership, not to be subject to a dictatorship.

He should be able to tell his family if he wants. Even if you prefer not to know if he does so. He has every right to support through the pregnancy and any complications. The fact that you want him to be your support through this but he's allowed noone doesn't sit well with me.

But then would the father be allowed support if she did choose a late termination? Or not allowed to tell anyone and suffer the grief alone as its not his body??

OP said she would find it easier to tell people after the termination if something wrong at 20 weeks and have the support from them then, which confuses me! OP said wants to wait until 20 week scan to check all ok but what's the problem if you're going to tell them anyway?

I think it’s fine to want to do this your way, but I would just say that you probably ought to acknowledge that it is far from the “standard” way to do it. I would also just say that if a close relative of mine told me about a pregnancy at 20 weeks, I wouldn’t be offended or kick off about it but I would think that we were not as close as I thought.

I think all the people saying her body, her choice, no exception, need to think about if it was the other way round? Say he was diagnosed with cancer, but decided he didn’t want anyone else to know, it’s his choice so would be respected. But, assuming a loving family on both sides, it would be extremely isolating for the partner to have to go through all that alone and also keep that secret, the role of supporting partner is often a thankless, lonely place at the best of times.

My point earlier, was that there should be a good reason to inflict that on your partner, and this is the important bit: if you can’t verbalise those reasons to your partner, you should think about why you’re REALLY imposing those restrictions in the first place, saying ‘because I said so’ isn’t really good enough.

I still believe she should not tell anyone if that is what he had asked for even in this scenario.
She would have to access professional support

Agree.

I know some of DH’s side were annoyed when we didn’t tell them the second time around until after the 20 week scan with our second and we quickly pointed out how they behaved with our first and how unsupportive they were the first time after our anomaly scan where there was a possible issue. They have a tendency to hear but not listen or consider what they’re saying and how not everything deserves an opinion.

We told my parents after them both times and they were excited and supportive. There was no question on why didn’t you inform us sooner, more on when they think they would be able to come and visit and if we were going to find out the gender or wait and see.

sorry, my message got cut short.

The OP has requested a further month until her anomaly scan.

In your scenario, if the husband with cancer asked for his wife to not tell family until further tests had been done a few weeks later and they knew more information, yes, I’d absolutely expect her to keep his confidence.

If my DH was diagnosed with cancer, I would still respect his wishes because it’s his body. They are other ways to access support that doesn’t involve telling family and friends. Many of us are on MN anonymously, are we not?

When my DP's cancer was diagnosed we didn't tell a soul until we knew exactly what we were dealing with.Once we knew the cancer hadn't spread and what treatment was required we told his parents and our adult DC.
The only other people who knew were DP's manager and several of his colleagues.
I was almost five months pregnant with our DS before we told anyone and it was four months before we announced that our DD was on the way.

I wanted to minimise the amount of time I spent listening to horror stories about childbirth and nonsense like how fat/tired/ill I'd be by the time I was six months gone.

We had someone in a family who did this. Family members were quite hurt and quite frankly, it showed on relationship after. It's simply now more acquaintance relationship than family. Dc still get presents etc but not much contact because the family just isn't that close. It's usually also not just the pregnancy but other things around child where family was treated like some random distant mates.

It's his baby too. It's crass not to allow him to say it to his family. Totally different to abortion decision....

In these circumstances I absolutely would!!

This is just bonkers quite frankly.

Personally, I wasn't vulnerable after I gave birth, and needed neither advocate nor gatekeeper. I needed, and was lucky enough to have, a friend, cheerleader and co parent.

We didn't tell anyone (bar my line manager) until 22 weeks. Similar-ish situation, except that we were not trying, so it took an awfully long time to get our own heads around it.
We also knew that we wouldn't continue the pregnancy if there big complications at the anomaly scan, so we felt that we had plenty of reasons not tell.
We told all family, in person, around the same time and they were all thrilled for us. No one got offended or hurt or cross that we'd 'lied' to them, I can only guess that's because our relatives are sane and don't expect autonomy over my life and body.
They are all now fully involved with the idea of their grandchild / niece or nephew (it's not arrived yet) and making plans to spend time with us when it arrives

I agree, If OP is this precious at just pregnancy stage she’s gonna be in for one hell of a ride with giving birth, feeding, sleep issues, recovering, early motherhood, motherhood in general!!

Well kudos on the “sane” relatives… 🙄

Anyone who would be upset about not knowing about someone's pregnancy before that person is ready to tell them is absolutely being unfair to the pregnant person, who has enough going on with their changing body and hormones without having to worry about how others will feel over something really quite trivial. So yes, I'll very much enjoy my sane normal relatives who would do nothing of the sort

@Thesunnymood exactly, treating family as essentially uninvolved strangers who have no right to know anything about your personal life is all very well and good, but don't be surprised when they get the message and don't want to be involved in your life down the track when you need them

It’s your call and I don’t think 20 weeks is unreasonable at all. I told my mum at 13 weeks and asked her not to tell. She told her friends and then we had to have an amniocentesis as certain tests were a bit worrying so I was incredibly pissed off she’d betrayed my trust and had a load of virtual strangers “worrying”. But I do think you need to get your round being pregnant at all. You sound slightly in denial. It is a major head f*#% but, all being well, there will be a baby and you and DH need to get onto the same page on lots of pregnancy and baby related issues. Kids are great. Best thing I’ve ever accomplished but the change in your life is profound so make sure you’re not reluctant to tell people because it isn’t “real” if that makes sense. It is real. Your DH is just very excited “look what I did” - it’s natural

I can relate to a lot of what you are saying - from the mixed/ complicated feelings when it happened faster than expected etc, sharing the info, etc. My experience was that I went on to developing prenatal and later on postnatal anxiety/ depression as a result (maybe something to keep an eye on). I don’t think you’re being unreasonable- if you need more time, you need more time. Whether it’s 16 weeks or 26 makes no difference as most people would have shared with their families by 12-14 weeks. You can always say you wanted to first make sure everything is going well and baby is healthy if you feel like you want to explain your decision (you don’t have to).

I do understand the need to keep it private from random people, distant friends but not parents