How do you tell a family member that you're pregnant when they've been struggling with infertility for two years?

[gemloving]

The title says it all. I don't know if I'm pregnant yet but could not be. I have two children and my SIL has been trying to conceive for 2 years unsuccessfully, next step is IVF.

She's wonderful and we've been speaking about it a lot and I know it's very tough on her and I suddenly realised my news (if there are news) would hurt her very much.

How would you handle this situation sensitively?

Send a text message rather than on the phone or in person. Gives them time to cry or scream or whatever they need to do before they process their response to you. Thank you for being considerate.

Text message, definitely not face to face. Explain how you understand it may be hard for her and give her time to process. Also it may be hard for her to be around you and attend family events, baby shower etc so give her an out from it if she needs to. Not everyone is the same but she will appreciate you being understanding and not feeling pressured. You are a lovely person for thinking about this.

@Decaffe thank you makes sense. I wish it was all easier and she'd be pregnant with my niece or nephew already. Life can be so unfair. We cried about it all together before but knowing I might be the trigger for more tears is just a shoddy thought.

@Narwhal88 everything you said makes total
sense. We already spoke about it before that shed rather not attend the kids parties and I already said that I understand. A lot of our friends also have two and there are always babies as well. I hope she can come
to the low key family birthday party for the kids but will of course understand if it's too hard.

As the others have said, text message, and don't send an ultrasound picture.

And if your pregnancy was first try/unplanned/while you were on the pill don't say that (thanks DH's friends, you know just what to say).

For me personally I hate any glib assurances of "you'll be next" or anything along those lines, not everyone gets a baby.

Agree with previous posters about not doing it face to face to allow SIL to process it.

That’s what I’d rather have had than to sit around a table with the family and be given a card with a scan photo in on my birthday after almost a decade of TTC. My SIL knew it as well but couldn’t help herself, also had to add it wasn’t planned and had happened first time 🙄 roll on two years and I’ve been lucky enough to have a baby and now they want another one as no longer the centre of attention. They’ve been TTC for a month and it didn’t happen first try again so she’s been posting things about secondary infertility. After a month. I didn’t know quite what to say so I’ve said nothing. Some people are unbelievable.

@rainbowtea23 we didn't even do that with our first, we had a scan picture and showed our family members individually but there was never a big reveal, second baby a lockdown pregnancy so it was kept on the low and lots of people were surprised we had a second. As we've been through it all twice, the big announcements aren't really needed if that makes sense.

I'm sorry you went through infertility and how wonderful you had your baby. I don't think us mothers who have children and never struggled with infertility will ever know how you feel, we can only imagine and be as sympathetic as we can be. I have friends in church who tried for 10 years and finally adopted but what a hard road.