Should I have told my family about my pregnancy and birth?

[lovefromplum]

My husband and I have struggled with infertility for 6 years and have experienced 5 losses during this time. Each loss was devastating, but the one that made me feel as though I could never truly trust my body was the loss of our baby girl at 18 weeks gestation.

We agreed to no longer try and instead focus on healing. But, life being what it is at times, I fell pregnant again. I resigned myself to the probability that this would also end in miscarriage and was very detached from the whole experience. However, we were lucky enough to welcome our baby boy recently and are so in love!

We have had a few congratulatory texts but no visitors from my family. While speaking with my cousin she shared that the reason they have all been so distant is because this is how I have made them feel throughout the pregnancy and it has caused a "rift" in the family. My aunts stepped in to support me for much of my childhood due to both my parents being young and having addiction problems. They feel my actions have come across as "ungrateful."

For context, we didn't announce my pregnancy until our 20 week scan and didn't announce his birth until we were home from the hospital (it was a difficult birth) when he was 3 days old.

Admittedly, the whole pregnancy was just me trying to get from one week to the next, and I was like a horse with blinkers on. So I probably did neglect other aspects of my life. I feel terrible and wanted to reach out to them, but my husband is against it. He dislikes the way they have gone about it and says we don't owe anyone access to our lives, even family.

Our friend group has mixed opinions.
I was just going to reach out to family members individually to apologise and explain, but now I'm wondering if I should. I'm so torn. They are my family, but I don't feel like I did anything wrong. But I guess that doesn't mean I didn't hurt their feelings .... Urgh! This is so confusing!

Do I fix it, or let time heal it?

Help please ...

I would try to fix a visit and go and see them and explain in person that you were afraid of another miscarriage (do they actually know you'd had so many?) and didn't dare take anything for granted.

Perhaps for you there is no back story. But obviously your sister had her reasons.

This is so horrible that it’s actually making me upset. I’m an aunt too. My brother and his partner really struggled to have children. They told me about their first child 12h after she was born, and the second after 2d. My view was that it was completely up to them how and when they shared the news. I love them and all I cared about was that mum and babies were healthy and that my brother was doing his bit.

I adore my nieces and I can’t imagine ever ‘punishing’ them by ignoring their birthdays. Not for anything.

I had a lighter version of your experience. It was a difficult journey to welcome our second child into the world. After two consecutive miscarriages and a difficult pregnancy, we welcomed our little girl. But I intentionally kept everything as a secret, mostly from my friends not family though. I just found it very difficult to say anything and I was so scared of saying anything while being pregnant. I could never really relax until the baby is here. That apparently also hurt my friends as they see me keeping it as a secret as a sign of us being distant. And I can’t explain to them as they are close enough to share pregnancies under normal circumstances but not close enough to share my pregnancy and my losses. You see many things are not about them and the losses are so painful that I think I don’t owe anyone an explanation.

You protected yourself and your family by handling it the way you did. Noone has a right to announcements, really what they should want for you is a healthy baby and healthy you. To raise this with you now freshly post partum let alone after multiple losses is such bad timing and so incredibly selfish of them. You already had an anxious pregnancy, a difficult birth ( I can sympathise as had ivf and then a rubbish birth but healthy boy :) and then to add to the maelstrom of postpartum feelings with this is just so selfish.

Id give it a cooling off period tbh or at least get in touch and way you understand how they feel but here is how you feel and explain if you wish but they don't sound that reasonable if they can bring this to your door when you have enough you to deal with rn. I'm so angry on your behalf! I didn't even tell my mum I had ivf as we wanted to just deal eith it ourselves, family knew we needed it but didn't know we'd gone ahead, and I didn't announce til about 16 weeks after the nipt. They just wanted us to be parents, not to be involved in every foetal milestone.

Congratulations on your son, enjoy him and please don't let this bring you down!

What a horrible person you sound. Why punish an innocent child.

After a couple of miscarriages I didn’t tell people I was pregnant until after 20 weeks and some people I didn’t tell until a month after the birth. I sent the announcement out with my Christmas cards! Nobody was annoyed. They were just happy for us. It really is more their problem than yours. Don’t let it spoil what is such a precious time.

OP I think you should reach out to them. Not to apologise or ask forgiveness. But to explain what you've been through (doesn't have to be a lengthy explanation).

Some people have a mind-set that if someone loves you or cares about you, they should automatically know and understand what you are going through.

But when you shut people off it makes it difficult for them to understand. Clear communication is needed.

They don't sound like bad people. Just hurt people because maybe they don't understand.

I don't think your DP should be making the decision for you on whether you reach out to your family or not. It's always good to have your own support network. There might times when you feel like you want to keep them at arms length (and it seems like that's what you did during your pregnancy and birth because you needed to) but there will be times when you do need them.

Most families have their ups and downs. This isn't something that can't be fixed. You just need to reach out.

You did what was right for you, they were aware you were pregnant and didn't need to be told when they feel would be convenient, it should only ever be about when the parents to be want to share this news.

They should be happy for you that you have a healthy baby and get over themselves.

Congratulations on the arrival of your lovely baby boy! You have nothing to apologise for. Your family knew you were pregnant and now they know the baby is here, what else were they really expecting from you during your pregnancy? You could perhaps invite individual members of your family over to meet the baby and give them a chance to understand your situation better and then advocate for you, but I hope you don't feel like you have to say sorry. Your pregnancy and birth is your own business, the baby is part of your whole family and now he's here they can meet him (if that's OK with you) and start at the beginning with him and with you as a new mother. You deserve kindness and gentle treatment, you've been through hard times and now had the transformation into motherhood. You do not deserve whispers behind your back or ignorant judgement. You've done something amazing!