Announcing a pregnancy - both sets of grandparents at the same time?

[Teenyweeny]

And it would be just as hurtful to them - perhaps more so - to find out after the fact that you were going through the grieving process all alone, while at the same time trying to hide the fact that you're grieving from your closest family

.

The hurt a couple feels with the loss of a child is paramount to anyone else's feelings.    I can't believe one can say the hurt parents feel over their adult children's loss would be MORE than the loss the children feel of their lost pregnancy.

I think what the author of that post meant was that the grandparents would find out eventually, and would then have to deal with the hurt of having somthing like that hidden from them, plus the pain of the loss itself. I don't think that the poster meant to imply that the gradparents grieve over a miscarriage more than the parents do.

This. Does your husband realize that concealing a pregnancy means that if something goes wrong, you can't tell anyone ever, if you are trying to prevent them from being hurt?
.....

That means that neither of you would be able to turn to your families for support if anything bad did happen.

Because one doesn't tell their family that absolves any familial support?

Well, people can't support you if they have no idea that there's anything wrong. That's just not possible.

Parents are hurt when bad things happen to their children. That's part of being a parent--you grieve with and for your children.

But imagine the hurt a parent would feel to discover, perhaps years later, that a child had gone through a terrible time and had not mentioned one word of it to them. To have been excluded from helping a child when the child most needed help. I think that would hurt far worse than being told that something bad had happened to one of their children.

The paramount feelings here are the pregnant parents.   Part of being married is working through things together.  Parents / Inlaws don't need to be involved.   If one has a miscarriage before telling potential grandparents, I would think the GP's would understand that the couple wanted privacy and to tell in their own time.   

Well, that brings me back to the first part of this post. If the GPs find out about the miscarriage because they can see that the parents are upset, then they will be upset too. Just as upset over the miscarriage as if they had been told directly, with an added side dish of confusion about what they are 'meant to know', plus possible hurt that they weren't told earlier.

There are a bunch of good reasons to not tell about a pregnancy, but if you're considering not telling someone whose support you may later want if something goes wrong, then that might not be a good idea.

Your intentions may be good (protecting your family from potential upset), but it's right to be able to count on the support of people you love, and if they are good people that support can be a real blessing.

[RandomAngel]

I think it depends on your relationship with the individuals. Not all parents are created equal.

I agree with this. Your pregnancy is, ultimately, all about you and your (updating!) immediate family. Anyone in your life who can't understand why you might tell people, wait to tell people, or tell some people and not others for a while is probably not the best judge of healthy family dynamics. That's not to say that they might not feel a little hurt about being kept in the dark--that's natural. But people you have positive relationships with will also understand...and people you don't have positive relationships with don't need to. Because this isn't about them (see above).

[fluffy]

Our situation was a little bit on the extreme side... we weren't planning on telling family until after 12 weeks, but then my Paternal Grandfather got sick and wasn't expected to live very much longer. I wanted to tell him before he died, so we told him when we visited him in the hospital. There wasn't really a way to tell him privately, so my Dad's side of the family ended up hearing the news very, very early. I think I was maybe 6 or 7 weeks along at that point?

Sadly, my Grandpa died a few weeks later. Our news came out at the funeral (Grandma wasn't thinking so clearly and she forgot that it was supposed to be a secret), so we ended up scrambling to call immediate family so that they could hear it from us first. At that point, we'd seen the heartbeat on the ultrasound, so I was OK with it becoming general family knowledge. Even my Mom, who has some serious jealousy issues with my Dad (they're divorced), was completely understanding. But, like I said, we had some very sad extenuating circumstances.

I could see not wanting to tell one set of parents because you didn't want to burden them with that news. If you think that they might spend weeks 6-12 feeling edgy and nervous, it might be a kindness to keep them from worrying. I think that's a situation where you really have to know your audience. And I don't think that keeping it to yourselves for a bit necessarily precludes you from telling them if something does go wrong. As far as they know, maybe you were just waiting for the right way/moment to tell them.

I do think that, if you tell one set of parents first, it has to be a set of parents that you know can be trusted with a secret. My Mom seems to take perverse pleasure in giving away people's secrets, so once she knew we pretty much had to tell my in-laws. I wouldn't have put it past her to call them herself. Even if I'd told her not to. My Dad, on the other hand, is generally very good with secrets. I was OK with him knowing before anyone else, because I didn't have to worry about him blabbing to the whole family.

I do think that, if you tell one set of parents first, and then the other set finds out that you waited to tell them, you could have some serious relationship fallout on your hands.

[Ceallach]

And it would be just as hurtful to them - perhaps more so - to find out after the fact that you were going through the grieving process all alone, while at the same time trying to hide the fact that you're grieving from your closest family

.

The hurt a couple feels with the loss of a child is paramount to anyone else's feelings.    I can't believe one can say the hurt parents feel over their adult children's loss would be MORE than the loss the children feel of their lost pregnancy.

I think what the author of that post meant was that the grandparents would find out eventually, and would then have to deal with the hurt of having somthing like that hidden from them, plus the pain of the loss itself. I don't think that the poster meant to imply that the gradparents grieve over a miscarriage more than the parents do.

This. Does your husband realize that concealing a pregnancy means that if something goes wrong, you can't tell anyone ever, if you are trying to prevent them from being hurt?
.....

That means that neither of you would be able to turn to your families for support if anything bad did happen.

Because one doesn't tell their family that absolves any familial support?

Well, people can't support you if they have no idea that there's anything wrong. That's just not possible.

Parents are hurt when bad things happen to their children. That's part of being a parent--you grieve with and for your children.

But imagine the hurt a parent would feel to discover, perhaps years later, that a child had gone through a terrible time and had not mentioned one word of it to them. To have been excluded from helping a child when the child most needed help. I think that would hurt far worse than being told that something bad had happened to one of their children.

The paramount feelings here are the pregnant parents.   Part of being married is working through things together.  Parents / Inlaws don't need to be involved.   If one has a miscarriage before telling potential grandparents, I would think the GP's would understand that the couple wanted privacy and to tell in their own time.   

Well, that brings me back to the first part of this post. If the GPs find out about the miscarriage because they can see that the parents are upset, then they will be upset too. Just as upset over the miscarriage as if they had been told directly, with an added side dish of confusion about what they are 'meant to know', plus possible hurt that they weren't told earlier.

There are a bunch of good reasons to not tell about a pregnancy, but if you're considering not telling someone whose support you may later want if something goes wrong, then that might not be a good idea.

Your intentions may be good (protecting your family from potential upset), but it's right to be able to count on the support of people you love, and if they are good people that support can be a real blessing.

I agree.    My take on that was this:  the grandparents will feel bad for the parents if they miscarry.  However, they will also feel bad if they find out later on about the miscarriage and realise how much the parents were suffering, e.g. the whole "You went through this and we weren't even there to support you!" hence they might feel even worse about it than they would have if they'd known at the time.   Parents often have that inbuilt desire to want to help their kids and protect them.   Of course, as a PP pointed out, not all parents are created equal!!     So the point is that if you want your parents support if things go wrong, telling them earlier about the pregnancy makes sense, as that way they can be there for you no matter how it goes.  Of course, if you never intend to tell them anyway (about a miscarriage) then it doesn't matter!     

I kind of wish DH hadn't told his parents, because I don't like them.  I haven't seen my MIL since it happened (we live in a different country) but I'm not looking forward to it when I do, because I don't want any comments from her!  So I'd rather she hadn't known, because I don't want her kind of *support* at all, ever.     Whereas with my family, I'm glad they all knew at 8 weeks and were there every second for me when it all went wrong 7 weeks later.   Darn that doctor who told us that everything was perfect on the 9wk scan and that there was a 95% likelihood of a perfect healthy birth.  Strong heartbeat apparently means nothing that early on.   

[kareng57]

We told both sides early.  Yes, something could go wrong - but if it did, would not telling the grandparents help?  Unless you plan to go through the rest of your life never telling anyone that you had ever been pregnant, you'd have to tell them eventually.  And it would be just as hurtful to them - perhaps more so - to find out after the fact that you were going through the grieving process all alone, while at the same time trying to hide the fact that you're grieving from your closest family.

I don't think that's necessarily true.  Lots of people (like me, maybe I'm biased) are very private regarding medical info.  Just as we didn't disclose our infertility treatments, I don't think that I'd have disclosed an early miscarriage, either.

I think it can be a "know your audience" kind of situation.  If the parents-to-be have a pretty good idea that the reaction to sad news of a miscarriage would be something along the lines of "oh, there was probably something wrong with it anyway", or "oh, this happens all the time, the two of you are still young" - I can understand them wanting to keep it to themselves.

[pearls n purls]

I had a miscarriage last year before we announced it, so our families did not know.  A few months later I told my mom about it because I needed some support at that time.  She was not at all upset that I had not told her earlier, so I wouldn't worry about that too much.  But of course it does depend on family members' personalities.

At the moment though, I'm in a similar conundrum as the OP.  We're at almost 6 weeks, but aren't planning on telling until about 12 weeks.  My DH has a family member that went through multiple miscarriages, so we don't want to tell his side until it's fairly safe.  However, I think there would be hurt feelings if we told my side much earlier.  I'm a bit worried my family will find out earlier due to morning sickness or something giving me away during a get together.  (My family lives nearby, his is out of state.)  If that's this case, I'll probably leave it to my husband to determine when to tell his side.

[audhs]

I don't think there really is one right answer to this question.   My girls are 5 and 7 now and I can't tell you who we told first or when we told them, other than my sister guessed I was pregnant before I'd even told my DH with my first.  - fortunatly she's the discreat kind and didn't actually say anything until after we told them.

I'm now pregnant again (very big suprise to everyone - me most of all)  I told my mom pretty early because I needed her to watch my girls when I went for an ultrasound and I was pretty upset about the pregnancy so she knew something was wrong.  But we waited to tell anyone else my MIL included until the end of the first trimester because I just didn't want anyone to know.

Just in case anyone wonders I'm now 5 months along and am no longer upset by the pregnancy, I'm actully getting excited about having another little girl (assuming the U/S was right)  It just took me about 4 months to get there.

[Shopaholic]

Thank you all for your posts. You're all right, of course - it does depend on the people involved and the relationships between them, and there is no one right answer.
I just wanted to get some insight into people's deliberations and experiences.

Thanks again!

[Sophia]

I told our parents.  This was the order:

My breasts were so sore, it hurt to remove my bra.
I told my husband, and that I thought I might be pregnant.  He said he had suspected as much.
Went to doc because I was so certain I didn't bother with a home test.
I got the results.
From the lobby, I called
a) My husband
b) My parents
c) His mom

[earthgirl]

When I first got pregnant (14 weeks now) I had initially wanted to hold off until second trimester or close to before we shared with anybody.  However, at 6 weeks due to extreme morning/noon/night sickness I realized that there was no way I could last another six weeks and not have the ILs notice that there was something funny going on -- they live in town, we see them roughly once a week, and MIL is very conscious of others' eating habits.  So we told my ILs at 6 weeks.  My parents, I would have been happy to wait until second trimester or beyond before I shared with them, but I knew there would be hell to pay if they ever found out that we'd shared this information with my ILs and not them, so I called them up after dinner with my ILs and told them.

And honestly, I regretted it; all the reasons I wanted to wait to tell them were justified.  Every family is different, but I will say that I went against what my gut feeling was just so I could be "fair" and it didn't really work out for me.  So my advice, coming from my experience, is to tell people when you are comfortable telling them.

I actually ended up having to make a general announcement at work earlier than I wanted to also -- at 10 weeks I had lost 25 pounds and my staff was worried I was dying of some horrible disease.  When my office manager started crying in my office because she was so worried about me I gave in and decided it wasn't worth keeping a secret. 

[bopper]

Listening to all the posts it seems that if you are going to keep the news from parents, do it because of how their reaction if something went bad would affect you (i.e., they aren't supportive) or if you don't want to tell anyone,  but not because you think you are protecting them.