Should I tell my husband about our miscarriage?

[Sop16]

TW: Living children mentioned

My husband and I have one happy, healthy 4yo. She was a rainbow baby. I’ve always wanted a sibling for her and feel terrible when she says how she wants a brother or sister to play with, or that she just wants someone to play with her when I tell her I can’t right now because I’m busy doing xyz.

We’ve tried but have had 3 missed miscarriages. Every one was brutal. Iykyk. On our mental health, on my physical health.

Surprisingly I took the last one better than my husband did. After the last one, he made excuses to put off trying for another for nearly 12 months, before I pushed him to have a conversation with me about it. He admitted he wanted another child, but didn’t want to go through another miscarriage. “Obviously,” I said, “- but you can’t try for one without the risk of another”. At that point I realised just how tough the miscarriages had been on him.

He had worried for my life when I had health complications. He’d never really processed the grief. He really didn’t feel comfortable trying again, or talking to a therapist to resolve his grief (I did this), or to do fertility testing. He basically was happy not to have any more and I understand his view - he’s grateful for the child we have and wants to enjoy that, and we’ve finally got into a phase where we have our evenings back, and we can more easily ask family to babysit overnight now so we have some independent adult time. He wants to protect his heart.

He also understood that for me, I have a biological clock and while I’m also grateful for the life we have, and don’t know that life would be better if we had another, I didn’t want to get to menopause and then regret not trying for another. I’m already borderline perimenopause. We compromised that we would not actively try, but we would not not-try. If it happens, it happens.

So, when I found out I was pregnant a few weeks ago, I decided not to tell him. I wanted to get it checked myself, and surprise him if I found out it was a healthy scan, because I don’t think he can go through the heartbreak of another. Trying to muster hope, feign optimism, and conceal your anxiety to the outside world is overwhelming. I’ve since found out that it‘s another missed miscarriage. My fourth.

During this period, I’ve masked all the pregnancy symptoms and slapped a smile on my face even though I feel tired and unwell. I’ve pretended I’m out doing other things when I’ve actually been to 3 scans and to the hospital. I’ve even booked the follow up appointment to end my pregnancy around when I know my partner will be busy, so I can take misoprostol at home while he’s out.

If I’m honest - I’m heartbroken. I’ve been swinging from detached and rational about it all, to spiralling - waking in the middle of the night and going down a google rabbit hole searching for success stories of people who had no heartbeat at 7 weeks but magically there was a week later. On the outside I’ve just about kept my shit together. The only people I told were my boss and a nurse today, because I had to, and when I spoke about my husband not knowing I cried. I don’t cry about it until I have to talk about it.

I feel a mixed bag - I wonder if my husband finds out any later, will he be mad I didn’t tell him? I wonder if I’ve not told him because subconsciously I worry he won’t want to try to conceive anymore. I worry if I tell him, I’m only bringing upset to him, isn’t that selfish?

I mostly just feel alone and exhausted, and unable to show my anger and my hurt at the situation. I also didn’t tell my family or friends because that would put them in a situation where they’re not telling my husband about it. Which means that I still have to hold family babies this weekend because I’m pretending everything’s fine.

What would you do?

I honestly don't know what I'd do and I'm so sorry you're going through this.
Why do you have to see other babies this weekend, what's happening?
Can you buy some time by giving in to feeling ill, saying you're too ill to do anything and can he look after dd while you get some rest?
I would give you a massive hug if I was there. But here's a wee hand hold, fwiw.

You need support from your husband, a chance to talk through your own grief and exhaustion. It doesn't seem right to protect him from any sadness at the cost of depriving yourself of support. And I'm guessing that he wouldn't want you to do this.

It may be less traumatic for him than the previous losses, because there won't have been the raised-and-then-dashed hopes.

It will be important how you tell him, what form or words you use to open up the topic. That will need some thought.

Just one caveat, if you think that telling your husband will just generate additional stress, grief and exhaustion for you, rather than opening up a source of support, I don't think you should feel duty-bound to tell him now. I think you should give yourself time and space to begin to recover, and just gradually move (when you are ready) to think about whether you need to tell him for his sake, rather than for your own support needs.

EDIT: I've just seen your question, "Am I being selfish?" The answer is NO!!!! You are not being remotely selfish, none of this is selfish. You are struggling with something difficult, and painfully considering your husband's needs even in the midst of your own trauma. Be kind to yourself, whatever you decide xxxxxx

I’m so sorry OP. Truthfully I don’t know what I would do in this situation, part of me thinks it’s important to tell him so you have that support, the other part of me thinks it doesn’t sound like he would be best placed to provide that support if he took it as hard as previous losses so you could end up dealing with your own grief & his on top of that.

Gosh I’m sorry for all you’ve been through and are going through. The problem with telling DH now is that you already made the decision to not tell him about the pregnancy, which you absolutely had your reasons for but having made the decision for those reasons, they make it so much harder now because rather than purely being supportive or even upset about the loss, there’d likely be a whole other level of upset about the secrecy and schism where you stopped being in it together and withheld.

I understand your reasons but some people instantly cut to a partner’s ability to lie to them and ‘what else aren’t you telling me?’ line of thinking which is the last thing you need. You know him best and whether he’d understand and have your back or not. Given the depth of his struggles before and its impact on the decisions to keep trying, I’d be tempted to address this as a bigger thing in counselling together. Sounds like that might be helpful to deal with the losses and make decisions going forward, so I’d suggest booking a session and if he says it’s not necessary then that would be the cue to reveal what you’ve just gone through because you didn’t want to upset him and thought you could cope but you’re not coping and need to talk. At that point if he’s understanding you may just be able to talk about it together, but if he’s upset or even angry about the secrecy, then the counselling is clearly needed and already on the table. I hope you get the support you need because it’s a lot to manage alone. 💐

Whilst I get your reasoning, you’ve put yourself in an awful position by hiding the pregnancy from your DH. My advice would be to sit down with him, tell him what has happened, tell him why you made the decision to keep it to yourself then take time for the pair of you to heal. Your child will be absolutely fine with being an only child if that’s what happens. What they need is a mummy and daddy who are happy now. Take care x

Really sorry for what you're going through.

I've been in a similar situation. DH struggled a lot with my miscarriages - I know he sometimes took his car and parked somewhere remote where he could cry so that I didn't know about it, as he felt he had to be strong for me, which was so sad 😢. So when I got pregnant again, I also chose not to tell DH for a while, just in case something went wrong...which it did. I miscarried at home without him knowing about it - I told him I wasn't feeling well, had bad period pains etc (and would cry on my own when he wasn't around).

Part of me feels bad that he never knew about it, and part of me is glad about doing it that way as it protected him from seeing me go through it all again.

I think men feel utterly helpless when their wives miscarry and they just want to fix it but don't know how. And they hate to see us in physical pain, and emotionally broken, because they can't make it better.

I have no advice really, but I completely understand where you're coming from - it's such an awful time 😥

I'm so sorry you're going through this!

I totally understand why you're torn about whether to tell your husband or not. I would worry he wouldn't want to try again following another miscarriage. If you do tell him I'd be really honest and tell him the reason why you chose not to tell him about the pregnancy and if you still want to keep trying tell him. He needs to know how much another baby means to you that you'd keep this all to yourself.

If you decide against telling him then please tell someone else who can support you. It must be so much harder for you not having anyone know what you're going through.