To tell or not to tell

Having realised that I am pregnant, the next question was who do we tell and when? The advice from our friends and family since we started trying to conceive has been not to tell until you reach your 12 weeks scan, but I wanted to find out why and make my own mind up. I’ve never heard about keeping it a secret before coming to live in the UK, but then again never thought about it before either when I lived in Argentina!

The reason that features on all web forums and from speaking to our midwife about the subject is that during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy you are at a high risk of miscarriage. A range of factors contribute towards miscarriage from lifestyle influences during the early pregnancy right through to faulty chromosomes or the mother’s age. For the best part women have little control over the body’s decision to miscarry and so it seems as long as you are careful and have a healthy lifestyle then Mother Nature will take its course and mum just needs to hope that her developing baby stays strong and is okay inside of her.

According to The Daily Beast  the risk of miscarriage after six weeks pregnancy is around 15% or 25% if you are 35 years old. Studies by the Miscarriage Association show if a scan at 10 weeks shows a heartbeat and has good measurements then the risk of miscarriage is very small. Interestingly your baby is fully formed at 12 weeks it is just extremely tiny! Your baby has all of its arms, legs, heart, lungs, everything! All it does from here is start growing bigger and stronger; the riskiest part of its development is over. See a picture of what your 12 week baby will look like here: http://www.solutionsphc.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/12-week-fetal-fetus-B.jpg.  

On the ‘Mindful Mum’ forum, which you can find, HERE, Lisa Marsh discusses what the implications of breaking the news too early really are. She says that not only will it potentially be more upsetting for mum if something does go wrong but people also feel that they are being put in an uncomfortable situation if they know you are in the first 12 weeks. They know how delighted you must be with your pregnancy but still they worry about what will happen if something does go wrong and also how that will affect them. What is refreshing is that Lisa explains that you should do what feels right for you. She explains that you should discuss with your partner who you want to tell about your pregnancy, why you want to tell them and also what will be gained from sharing the news.

We have agreed to tell our immediate family early as I will need their support and their good vibes for everything to work out well, whatever way things go. If things go wrong, then I know they will try to help and I won’t feel isolated. My family are living in Argentina so I told them the news via Skype from the counter in our shop!

I wanted to tell the rest of the world but I couldn’t but I had to tell one of my friends, the one that gave me the lucky test (see earlier blog posts) but I’ve asked her to keep it secret! She is soooo excited because we had hoped to be pregnant together and so finally got our wish. 

I don’t know how I kept my mouth shout as I am rubbish at keeping secrets!

I would love to hear your thoughts about when you think it is okay to break the news and about your experiences...

Xxxx Lorena

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