Mortified and anxious - herpes - hand hold, please

[user1497254675]

Hello lovely people,

I am desperately hoping for some support and advice (as opposed to unsupportive comments) as I am very worried.

I am in my early 30's and am 23 weeks pregnant. I contracted herpes at the age of 19 whilst in a long term relationship, from a partner who was unaware of the risks of carrying. I had one, terrible initial breakout and, since, have had 2-3 minor breakouts a year. I have not received medication for these, as usually just one blister appears (and I don't have sex during this time).

I am happily married, but have never told my partner about this condition. I know people may say 'just' tell him, but I am so mortified and can't go through with doing so. I have woken this morning to a blister and am now petrified that I might have a flare up when due to give birth. I have read that the condition is more serious when women contract it for the first time during pregnancy (whereas I had my first breakout years ago), but that a C-section might be necessary if there are active blisters at the time of birth? I cannot tell my DH (or anyone else) about this and don't know what to do. Presumably, if I had an outbreak when due to give birth, a doctor or midwife would announce it without consent? I am mortified and very anxious. Does anyone have any experience of this? Advice and help would be much appreciated.

Thanks x

Contact your midwife. It's not a big deal, honestly. I and several of my friends had this during pregnancy. In our area we just self referred for treatment at the gum clinic.

You really should tell him and I don't know why you haven't already as it could have been passed to him too and he has the right to know about it. It is just like having a cold sore in the wrong place and not anything to be ashamed of. Better for him to find out from you than from a stranger

I too have/had herpes (none for ages, touch wood) but felt so ashamed & embarassed to tell my midwife when expecting - but the risks of passing it on to my bubs was very real & I was assured that they see & hear lots & not to be too upset.

But I wanted to encourage you to tell your DH too so he can also support you when it (if) recurs & so its not a huge shock to hime also if he contracts it himself. I found that hormonal swings really impacted on the frequencies of outbreaks for me, which were self-perpetuating, as when I worried about them or got rundown I would just have blister after blister. So def needed the support/understanding of my DH. Just saying. Once your wee LO is here you will be busy (read exhausted :) ) so look after yourself & tell him now - as you both need each others backs once the baby is here.

I really feel for you and though ive never been in your situation and cant offer advice you have nothing to be ashamed of, i do think that telling your husband might not go down too well as he might feel betrayed that you never told him before but a discreet word with the midwife should help if you explain your husbands not to know, also did they do the usual blood tests in early pregnancy as they pick up on stds and if so the midwife should have mentioned it. I hope all goes well for you

As mortifying as you are finding this, it isnt as uncommon as you think.

I have a couple of friends who have been in your position (but the partners knew and there was no flare up come birth time).

If i were you and really didnt want to tell my husband then id wait until i was 36-38 weeks and cross the bridge when it comes to it. Chances are you will be fine and worrying wont the future change.
If you do have a flare go at the very end of pregnancy I dont see how you cant tell your husband to be honest.

I dont feel as though you have anything to be ashames of. But i totally understand youre worries about telling your husband.

He does have the right to know if he has herpes too as the virus can shed even if you don't have active sores so he could have it already and not know about it. Please try to tell him

You might be embarrassed but He has every right to know. You're married for god sake!
When I started going out with my husband I had just had warts from my previous boyfriend. I had to tell him and he was like "oh, I wouldn't worry about that, I got them as a teenager and still have breakouts now". 10 years on and we have both had breakouts, my husband has had quite bad ones that have needed to be removed. It's really not a big deal. We almost couldn't conceive because I've had chlamydia! Everyone has a past. Unfortunately herpes will come back. He will probably be very understanding. Give him some credit!

You are really overreacting but I can see why considering you have concealed this info from you DH and now have snowballed it into something massive. Soooooo many people and pregnant women have herpes! It's no big deal. Your DH does now too I'm sure just may not have had a flare up (or did and hid it from you too). I think your biggest issue is lying about this to your DH. That's what you need to tackle. The rest is no big deal, just tell your midwife, she'll sort it from there. Highly likely nothing will be needed.

OP you can do this. I think you know you need to tell your husband and I just wanted to cheerlead you to say you can do it. You're raising a child together - you can defo share this information. As the others have said, loads of us have herpes - just the same as loads of people have cold sores (in fact you can catch it down there from someone's cold sore). It's incredibly common just not talked about. Historic infection extremely unlikely to impact baby unless you had a very bad breakout at birth that you told no one about. Nothing to be ashamed of and you will feel so much better when it's out in the open with the people who need to know. Find a quiet moment to tell him. I'm sure he'll be supportive. And your midwife won't even blink. You've got this! x

Tell your midwife and explain that your husband doesn't know. They will have a way of recording it in your hospital notes as confidential and not in your handheld notes. If it is still active at 36 weeks make sure you let your midwife or GP know asap as you can have aciclovir to limit it. Hopefully then it will clear by the time you give birth. If it is active in labour they may recommend caesarean. But if you have told your midwife in advance that you don't want your OH knowing, they'll find another "reason" for it e.g. baby is breech.

Sorry but terrible advice above about lying about a breech baby. Breech babies need lots of attention in the first year for issues like hip problems - it would be immoral for your baby to have a false medical history and be wasting medical resources like this. While a healthcare professional can't disclose your medical information without your consent, they also cannot be asks to lie. This is even more true when the lying puts another person at risk, like your husband in this scenario.

I think you should take a deep breath and tell him. If you don't tell him and he subsequently develops it, however careful you are, he may become suspicious that you have cheated on him. I think it is pretty unacceptable not to disclose an STD and allow him to have made the choice to have unprotected sex with you. I would not be surprised if he felt quite betrayed or angry for some time. But better tell him and get it over with. No good can come of hiding and secrecy.

The longer you leave it, the worse it is. Tell, be prepared for some fallout, allow him time to process it and get on with having a lovely baby.

It's not about creating a false medical history for your baby. It's just for if OP needs a convenient excuse for her OH. It wouldn't be recorded falsely anywhere.

Yes of course in an ideal world OP would tell OH. But that often doesn't happen. If OP isn't going to tell OH, then at least the baby is protected from transmission. If she isn't given a convenient excuse (breech was one example) she may not tell anyone at all. In which case the baby may be affected too!

What about writing a letter or email?

This may make telling easier. I would start by telling your midwife, because that really isn't a big deal and for medical reasons she should know.

(It has occurred to me that maybe your midwife already knows, even without you disclosing it. Surely diagnosis and treatment of herpes will be on your medical file? Anyway, that is an aside...)

Then after you have built up some confidence by writing a letter to give to your midwife, see if you can write a letter/email to give to your husband. Not saying it face to face might be easier.

Of course it would be false. Husband takes baby for a checkup and is asked was the baby breech, answers yes. Or he asks if the child is developing ok despite being breech. Surely we don't expect the OP to exercise complete control of every medical and developmental appointment for the child's life. If the OP wants a section or needs a section, great. She can tell the husband as much - I fully support maternal request section. "I want one" should be reason enough for her husband if she doesn't want to disclose anything more. But it needs to be said really clearly that it is unethical and immoral to lie about the baby's medical history to the other parent.

Oh and if you haven't already told your healthcare team, you must do so immediately. Ask that it be kept highly confidential if needs be but keeping relevant medical favs secret from healthcare providers is a crazy thing to do. You would never forgive yourself if your baby suffered harm.

And seriously, tell toe husband. You cannot continue to explode him unknowingly to the risks of an STD. If the roles were reversed, I imagine the responses on here would be quite different.

I spoke to my DH about your situation and he thinks that you are blowing it way out of proportion. If it's easier, why don't you tell him you've had a break out and you got it then you were 19 and didn't really realise you could get it reoccur again so didn't think to mention it until now. That's completely plausible as many people don't know. That way it won't seem like you've lied to him all these years and at least the cat will be out of the bag!

I think Thingy's advice is good. Defo don't worry about telling the MW OP.

This is what I would do:
Honey I'm a bit sore down then I might mention it to the midwife
< Midwife appointment >
Oh god it's a cold sore, she says I must have got it when I was younger and pregnant hormones made it flare up. Oh god I had no idea.
Husband will ask - So what does it mean?
Well I might need some tablets now and if it happens again later I'll have to see what they say. She did mention a c section might be better if I had a cold sore on the due date but I guess we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

I'm sure he will just be supportive and loving and kind.
Calling it a cold sore - WHICH IT IS - takes at least half the stigma away. And then pretending you didn't know you had it...that is a white lie but at least then he'll know.

You can get referred to a consultant and see if they can put you on a preventative course of anciclovir in the month prior to your due date. I was worried about telling my DH when we first got together, but when i explained how i got it he was great about it. I was checked for sores when i went into labour and all was fine. If I'd had sores then i would have had to have an emergency c section. Honestly easier if you tell him, tell him how embarrassed you were by it and how it makes you feel, it's so much easier them knowing particularly when you have to abstain from dtd due to a flare up.

You cannot continue to explode him unknowingly to the risks of an STD.

Sorry sycamore, this autocorrect fail gave me the most entertaining mental image 😂

(Disclaimer, I'm not an HCP)

If cold sores and herpes are basically the same thing and are essentially viruses and you've had the infection more than a decade, surely you've developed antibodies long ago that are in your system and that you'll have passed to the baby from the start (?)

I have a memory that I read this somewhere long ago in a pregnancy book, (maybe specifically about herpes, or maybe more generally about a range of viruses that pose a risk to babies). I think dangerous viruses are most dangerous if they're new infections that you and the baby don't have resistance to.

I'm trying to be reassuring based on what I remember but check with the MW.

Hi op, I just wanted to tell you that I was told n the exact same position as you except I had an outbreak maybe every 2 years since 14 years ago. I had no outbreaks during pregnancy until 39 weeks. I was in such a panic and didn't know what to do. I saw a doctor who prescribed anti virals and said I don't need a c section as antibodies have been passed to the baby. They will discuss this with me again when I go in for induction. I was so scared about telling DH but he was totally fine. I really would tell your DH, even if it's in your notes not to say anything you would be anxious about it which is he last thing you need and being anxious leading up to the birth will probably guarantee a flare up. I know it's easy to say just tell him but honestly i felt the same as you and built it up so much and in the end it was fine. Feel free to pm me. I was going to name change for this but then thought screw it, there shouldn't be such a stigma. Good luck and congratulations x

Are you not concerned that if/when your DH finds out, he will think you've been unfaithful during the relationship?! I can't fathom not telling my husband something like that!!

I'm very early on in my pregnancy and was in a real pickle about whether or not and how to tell my DP. We've been together for 4 years and I hadn't told him. I knew I should have before we first slept together and then before we stopped using condoms but I just couldn't summon up the guts to.

When found out I was pregnant I was thinking I'll either have to be quite secretive and either not tell my midwife I have HSV2 or tell her but ask her not to mention it in DPs presence. Neither of these options appealed to me as I want DP to be as involved with the whole process as possible. This is my second pregnancy but will be his first baby.

I spoke to a close friend about it. She too has HSV2 and has us horrid experiences of partners treating her like a leper after she disclosed so her advise was for me to keep schtum. I also mentioned it to a friend of mine who is a therapist and she said I'm making much too big a deal out of it and that it's a minor thing and he will not be fussed about it.

In the end I wrote down what I wanted to say and I told him about three weeks ago. Half way through my little speech he said "is there much more of this?" And when I had finished he said "I don't care" and hugged me.

He said he could see how tough it was for me to tell him and the most important thing for him was to know I've tried my best not to pass it on to him.

I hope this helps. Tell him. You may be surprised by his response. I was..

Hello

i know this is an old thread but can you please give me any advice as I am in the same situation and panicking! How did it all go for you? TIA