Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Coming out

MM and I had agreed that, if our NT scan was negative, after the NT scan, we would start telling people about the pregnancy.  I guess I should really say "telling more people," because quite a few people already knew. . . . including anyone who reads this blog (though most of you don't know us in real life), several of my close friends, my sister, our parents, a couple of MM's and my coworkers.

Yesterday I sent out an email to all the friends and extended family members who didn't yet know I was pregnant, and MM gave his mom the go ahead to tell her friends and extended family.  Today I posted a brief status update on Fa.ceb.ook letting people know that I am pregnant with twins, due in February.  (I know, many of us hate reading these kinds of things on Fa.ceb.ook, and I've ranted about such postings on this very blog in the past. . . . but there are a number of people I wanted to know I'm pregnant with whom Fa.ceb.ook is my only link.  I kept it short and sweet and skipped the ultrasound photos.)

As expected, I've received lots of congratulatory emails and comments.  (A commonly used word is "wow," LOL.)  It's been nice to share the news, as I am not a secretive person by nature.  It's been odd not mentioning I'm pregnant to certain people, when it's such a huge part of what's going on with me. . . . particularly with feeling like crap the majority of the time.

Of course, today I had the irrational (but not entirely unexpected) thought "What if something goes wrong?"  The downside to letting people know about my pregnancy is that I/we will have to also tell them if something bad happens.  I didn't allow myself to dwell on this thought, though; we just saw that the babies were doing fine on Monday, and I have no rational reason to believe anything has changed since then.

Oh, and to people who have asked if we did fertility treatments or IVF--yes, there have been a few--I have simply responded "Yes, we did" and left it at that.  I don't see the point in making a big deal out of that, and I actually like the idea that people know that we very much wanted to be parents and that these aren't "oops" babies.  Not that there's anything wrong with that, but I am fine with people knowing this pregnancy is very, um, pre-meditated and planned.

No one has asked me if we used donor eggs, and I can't imagine that anyone will.  After all, most people who haven't dealt with infertility firsthand think IVF is the cure-all for everyone who can't conceive, even women over 40 like me.  And while conception at 40 is rarer than at, say, 25, it still happens naturally quite a bit.  (For other people, not for us, obviously.)  Four years ago, when I had never tried to conceive myself or known I was infertile, I don't know that I'd have guessed a 40-year-old woman might have used donor eggs to achieve pregnancy.

Another step along the path.

P.S.  I wanted to address mommyinwaiting's comment on my last post about whether I'm going to continue to keep you all in suspense about the gender prediction.  I am, just because I don't entirely trust it this early.  The tech said pretty clearly that the angles on both babies were less than ideal for predicting, and as I understand it, the difference between boy and girl is all about "the angle of the dangle" at this early gestational age.  Rest assured that once we have a more solid prediction at our anatomy scan (scheduled for October 7), I will share it.  In the meantime, if you think you know what we're having, why not vote on the poll I've posted?

7 comments:

  1. Yay for coming out officially, I'm so happy for you!

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  2. I'm so jealous you got a prediction at your NT scan. My doc and technician wouldn't go that at all. Also, I had my "coming out" on Sat as we were hosting a party anyway, I was exactly 13 weeks and the NT scan was clean.

    We did have a couple of people ask. I'm pretty protective about the IVF question because for me it can easily lead to the donor egg question as I'm a breast cancer survivor and chemo almost always does in the egg reserve. I'd rather not open the door to IVF and then have to tell partial truths about donor eggs.

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  3. @michelle: I can understand why you wouldn't want to address the IVF question. Although if people know you are a breast cancer survivor and know enough to realize the effects chemo has on egg reserve, they may assume you used donor eggs whether you mention it or not.

    I do think asking someone if she did fertility treatment is a pretty personal question, so I think anyone who wants to keep this to herself is perfectly within her rights to do so.

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  4. I voted boy and girl. So, are you going to share any u/s pics here? I would love to see them, but can understand that some people may not be up to viewing them.

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  5. I like the poll! So we can all at least have fun with the guessing while we wait for 7 October.

    Telling the world is the fun part - for me it helped to get so much more excitement (if that was possible) out of the whole pregnancy. I also put it on Facebook, but then we had been so open on Facebook about our infertility journey that I knew most people (even fellow infertiles) would know what we had been through for these babies and it would lessen the blow to them a little.

    As for telling people who ask if you did fertility treatment, I think that is great. I thinkwe are all entitled to do what suits us best, but the more people who are open about their infertility, the less ignorance there will be out there and the fewer stupid comments. So thanks for helping to educate the masses who ask.

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  6. I've been telling everyone we did IVF because I a) want them to know what we went thru to get here and b) assume some sort of explanation is expected after 4+ years of trying! But, I'm not mentioning donor eggs, though no one has asked (I'm 31, so I don't think most assume that would be necessary). A cousin who I'd asked to be our donor did ask via text if we used my own eggs and I just ignored that text and answered something else she'd texted! Obviously harder to just avoid the question in person, so not sure how I'll handle that. There are IRL friends who read my blog, but besides them (& my bff, who was our donor!), we don't plan to tell people until and unless our daughter chooses to share that information herself. She will always know her story, but it seems like such a personal thing for everyone to know about her that I want her to be able to make that choice when she's older. But I don't know how that will work exactly--I'm so used to openness in our adoption (with our son) that it's hard for me to keep something this big under wraps! So I guess it will be a work in progress. Anyway, congrats on the twins and the good NT scan and on going public--all very exciting!

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  7. It's funny - I was always really open about our IF journey and our fertility treatments. But I never did post a pregnancy announcement on FaceBook! It's funny the different things we IFers get superstitious about! (Hubby did start talking about our pregnancy eventually on Facebook.)

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