Don’t worry, I’m not pregnant. My eggs are poached and my womb was removed a couple of years ago. No, it’s someone else: a colleague of mine’s sister. Her sister has only told my colleague, because she’s “mature” and afraid to tell anyone else because she’s in the first trimester other wise known as “if I say nothing, then I can pretend like nothing happened if I lose it”- trimester. Priscilla Chan and Mark Zuckerberg (among others) brought the issue of miscarriage front and center for discussion, but so far, it’s only made it slightly easier to tell people you’ve had a miscarriage.
It has not made it easier to determine who you can tell that you’re pregnant in that first trimester. We simply do not have social protocols around communicating early pregnancy. It’s either: “Congratulations!!” or “I’m so sorry.” Binary – you’re pregnant or you’re not pregnant. And while technically that is true, statistically, viability rates follow a curved pattern. And age among other things affects those curves. If you are over 40, then you could get pregnant, but the chances of it being viable drops precipitously. Does that make you any less eager to tell your mother when you are eight weeks pregnant? Of course not! But neither do you want to tell your mother only to receive a bunch of tiny NB sleepers only to have to tell her you lost it a week later.
It would be great if we could tell everyone we know, “Guess what? We’re/I’m trying to have a kid, and it looks like it may happen! We’re a little bit pregnant right now, so keep your fingers crossed for us!” And everyone would respond, “Ok. I’ll keep my fingers crossed that it work out for you, but let me know if it doesn’t and if there’s anything I can do to help. I know this must be an emotional time for you. I’ll be thinking about you!” And if the loss happens, there would be nothing embarrassing or shameful about having “counted your chicks before they hatched.” You could share with everyone the sad news, take the days off you need to recover, and receive the support you most definitely need from the people you know and love.