Unplanned pregnancy and don’t know how to tell DH

[Anxioussecondtimer]

I’ve just found out I’m pregnant. It wasn’t planned. I’m married and we already have a child who’s nearly 3.

Our first child was very much wanted and conceived after multiple miscarriages. However, although we always said we wanted another baby, DH has really struggled with his mental health since we had the first one, and I think is leaning towards saying he wants to stop at one.

I haven’t told him yet that I’m pregnant, and I don’t know how to, because I’m pretty sure he’s going to be angry, disappointed and freaked out. I’m also aware that with my age and history there’s a highish chance of miscarriage, so I sort of think if I wait a few weeks it might all be moot and then I’d never have had to tell him at all.

There’s no question of not keeping the baby. He wouldn’t ask me to terminate. But I don’t know how to break the news. I really don’t want to preface it by saying I have bad news, but similarly I don’t just want to present it as excellent, because that would really undermine him and how he’s going to feel (especially as he’s recently been made redundant and I know he’ll panic about money).

Has anyone else been in a similar situation? How did you go about breaking the news?

I had a similar ish situation although not quite the same. I was ready for #2 all of last year but DH said no due to his mental health, working so much and he said he just found DS alot harder than he thought. I think he doubted his ability to be a good dad even though he's fantastic.
He finally agreed to try at the end of the year but only really to keep me happy. I got my bfp straight away and I was shocked that it happened so quick. I was scared to tell him incase he wasn't happy at all and had only agreed just to shut me up.
I also wasn't sure whether to tell him as had a miscarriage in the past, so like you I thought I'd wait until further along just incase.
But the secrecy was eating me up. I waited about 10 days then I bought a 'big brother' t-shirt for my son and showed my DH. I couldn't actually get the words out of my mouth so let the t-shirt do the talking. He took it well apart from being shocked that it happened so quickly.
All I can suggest is that you are probably making it seem worse in your head, the longer you wait, the harder it will probably be to actually tell him. Once he knows you will feel relief and can then deal with his reaction together.
Can you maybe pretend that you haven't tested yet and say something like you are feeling a bit strange and your AF is late, you might need to do a test. Then find out together?

Thank you for replying. I was feeling really desperate and lonely. I told him tonight and it went much better than I anticipated, though I’m sure there will be ups and downs.

I was so worried to tell my DH about our pregnancy. Even though it's something we had both said we wanted, we were just a couple of months away from getting married which had ended up costing a fortune and we had just lost over 30k on a business acquisition gone wrong. I knew his MH was really suffering under the pressure of it all.
I told him very gently and with a bit of humour (I presented him with a 'Pregnancy for Dads' book) and just didn't set myself up with any expectations of how he might react.
The first 3-5 days were awful, neither of us knew what to do and it seemed too big a challenge to even comprehend and just like the worst timing in the world.

I'm now 28 weeks into the pregnancy and we are the happiest we have ever been. The pregnancy eventually completely put everything into a new focus for us, we made some big lifestyle changes and we are just completely and utterly besotted with each other and so ready for this exciting new journey with our daughter when she arrives.

Give him time to process and I'm sure if you are a strong couple, you will find a way to make it work for both of you, both physically and emotionally