The Announcement Rule

For the first post on this blog, I want to take it back to the very beginning. One of the most exciting yet terrifying things about new motherhood involves what I like to call “The Announcement Rule.”

This rule has been created by society’s lack of empathy and awareness to the fear that women, and even men, can harbor when it comes to announcing a pregnancy. You hear it all the time: Miscarriages are more common than people think. And yet, many mothers and fathers suffer alone in these experiences because we are pressured into waiting until the pregnancy has reached the “safe zone.” But newsflash: There is no true safe zone.

Working in Labor and Delivery, I see many situations that cemented in me that there really is no safe zone during pregnancy. And that is what makes pregnancy equally as nerve-wracking and fearful as it is exciting and beautiful. And unfortunately, not many people understand that unless they have experienced it for themselves.

Which is why I myself fell prey to “The Announcement Rule.” I experienced a miscarriage prior to my current pregnancy. This is something that not many people know about, other than close family, friends, and my coworkers.

I became pregnant in early May of 2023. I like to call this pregnancy a not-so-surprise - surprise. About two years prior to this pregnancy, I went off birth control. I was tired of experiencing all the hormonal and emotional side effects of the birth control pill and sought out a more natural form in the way of tracking my monthly cycle. I’ll go into depth about tracking cycles in another post, but for now, I just want to point out that I was very in tuned to my body and my fertile window. This is how I knew when to avoid unprotected sex. However, my boyfriend and I slacked a little and I remember saying, “we have to stop or I will end up pregnant.” LOL! That little bit of slacking meant that I was just within the first day of my fertile window and that is what I assume led to my conceiving. However, it was very much not planned, hence the surprise.

I attended a Taylor Swift concert on May 7th, 2023. At this concert, I started what I thought was maybe an early start to my period. It was light pink spotting and occurred only when I wiped. I even made jokes about it being implantation spotting because I think deep down I knew that was exactly what it was. The spotting was not anything I was used to in the normal cycle of my period. The other important thing to note is that my cycle was always very regular. And once I was home from the concert, next thing I knew, I was 3 days late on my period. I took a pregnancy test on May 10th, and it came back glaringly positive.

I had a lot of mixed feelings. I had always wanted to be a mom, experience pregnancy for myself, and I was so in love with my boyfriend and couldn’t imagine a better father for my child. However, I was also suddenly filled with massive amounts of anxiety. My boyfriend and I had only been together for a few months at this point, I did not want to add any reason for our relationship to fail as we were still new and figuring each other out, and I didn’t want the social judgement of it being “too early” into our relationship to procreate. I also did not know how my boyfriend would react.

We had been telling each other for months, basically since we met each other, that we were so sure about each other. That we were going to get married, and that we were going to eventually have children. However, the deep fear inside me that all women have, is that words are just words and anything could happen. I did not want him to think that I had made this happen to “trap” him. And I did not want him to be worried like I was, that having a baby with each other would only be the start of our downfall. Because let’s be honest, having kids can make or break a relationship. These were all fears that my overthinking brain had within the first 5 minutes of seeing that double line on that test. However, I had nothing to worry about, because after the initial shock, we were both extremely excited for this new journey ahead of us.

Knowing what I knew, I mentioned that miscarriage was always a possibility. I had already calculated things and knew I was roughly 4 weeks. Extremely early. However, I feel like I didn’t do enough to warn him of the possibility of a miscarriage, especially when I started spotting bright red blood two days later.

I spotted dark and bright red blood every time I went to the bathroom over the entire weekend. During this time, I said I thought maybe we should wait to tell our parents until I knew what the bleeding was. However, we decided to tell anyways, and between my mother and my coworkers, they all tried to convince me that bleeding early can be normal. Which it can be. But I think I had a gut feeling it wasn’t in my case.

I asked my doctor to order HCGs so that I would know my levels, and if they were decreasing then at least I would know. My first HCG was within range for pregnancy, the second had dropped, and the third was back to being in the negative range. Between the second and third draw, I woke up with blood soaked underwear and intense cramping. I knew in my heart that I was miscarrying.

I sat on the toilet for 30 minutes cramping and bleeding until that last cramp that was so insanely intense, I knew I needed to look into the toilet, for my own confirmation. Seeing a small clump of tissue and knowing that it had not developed past the initial blastocyst of some kind, was both calming and absolutely heartbreaking. Calming, because if it had resembled a fetus at all, I think it would have been harder in a way. But heartbreaking because even after only less than a week of imagining this life that we were about to have, it was taken away in that moment. I cried for myself, I cried for my boyfriend, and I cried for what could have been.

We spent that day at home together, supporting each other and distracting our minds. We told our parents and those who knew. Then less than a week later, I had that last HCG drawn and later that same day we left for vacation to Florida. This vacation was a week long with my extended family. Who had no idea of what we just went through. We continued to grieve through the week in hiding while also trying to keep a poker face and make memories with the loved ones we were with.

This is why, regardless of how I used to feel, that this “Announcement Rule” was bullshit and only left people to suffer and grieve something on their own, was something I wanted to follow when not even two months later, I found out I was pregnant again.

The “Announcement Rule” in my opinion is a way for society to tell men and women that their pregnancy does not matter until it is considered “safe.” That they shouldn’t tell people about this wonderful gift they are expecting to receive for the reason that it might not stick. They may lose that pregnancy and what is the point in bringing others into that grief and sorrow when if you just keep it a secret until 12 to 16 weeks, then no one else has to be sad. Yet the expecting parents are left to grieve and process that alone. Much like we did that week in Florida.

Shortly after returning home, I became pregnant again before I even started my next period. This one was not as much of a surprise in a sense that I knew it could happen. I was not able to track my cycle until my period returned and we were both in a headspace of not being able to think about preventing because then we were thinking about why we were preventing. It was a surprise because I honestly did not expect it to happen that quickly. However, again, we were very excited, but it was laced with an extreme amount of fear.

The decision was made that we would wait until the first ultrasound before announcing. And then the first ultrasound came and went. Everything looked good, perfect even. But then we wanted to wait until after the second ultrasound. When it came and went, again, everything was perfect. But in our minds, we just played it nonchalantly. Because we were afraid of losing the possibility again. We told family around 16 weeks and then announced on social media at 18 weeks that we were expecting a little one. However, I don’t think our fear about anything “going wrong” let up until the last couple of weeks now that we are in the final month of this pregnancy, expecting to be delivering her any day now.

I was such an anti-announcement rule kind of person, until it happened to me. I still believe that announcing a pregnancy early is not wrong in any way. That if it’s announced early and is lost, then there are people there that can, should, and will hopefully support those through one of the hardest things. However, I also believe that if people choose to wait, there is some solace in that as well. It was nice not having to acknowledge my pregnancy to anyone when I was out and about so I was not worried about if I told people, it would be taken away again. It was nice having it be just a “mine and his” kind of thing, something we talked about occasionally at home but also somewhat ignored until we felt that it was truly safe.

Looking back on the last year, I could not imagine being where I am at this current moment, 2 weeks out from my due date, expecting a sweet little girl with someone who I love very much. Thinking about how my miscarriage has affected my outlook on “The Announcement Rule” and how I still believe there is not enough understanding and support following a miscarriage unless one has experienced it themselves, I am thankful that in having that experience, I am able to support others with just the equal understanding of what it is to have that, and then lose it.

I hope that anyone who does read this post, and makes it to the end here, that has experienced this type of situation is able to realize that you are not alone. And regardless of if you followed this silly rule from society to not acknowledge something so special to you, you know it was special. And it was yours. And it always will be. No matter how long you were able to cherish it.

*Emma