How To Announce Your Pregnancy To Infertile Friends
This morning I received an email from a friend telling me she was pregnant. It was a thoughtful message expressing her worry of announcing the news to me in a sensitive way and some words of admiration and comfort. Honestly, it was the perfect example of how to announce your pregnancy to a fried or family member who is infertile. Personal, sensitive and caring.
When it comes time to announce your own pregnancy, you may be worried on how to approach it with infertile couples that you are close to. Here are some suggestions of how best to relay the news.
1. Reach out to them personally through a phone call, email or face to face. This shows that you are sensitive to their condition and think highly enough of them to respectfully take your time to let them know.
2. Going along with that, unless you don’t know of their condition or are just barely acquaintances, make sure they know before you do a large scale announcement via Facebook, Twitter or text message.
3. Express that you are thinking of them. Don’t show pity, show understanding.
4. Don’t be offended if their initial reaction is not pure joy. Every time an infertile person hears another person announce their pregnancy, it reminds them of what they so desperately want and don’t have. That is why it hurts a little, not because they’re not happy for you.
5. Don’t say anything along the lines of, “I can’t believe how fast it happened!” or “Now you just need to get pregnant so our babies are close in age!” Just express that you’re happy about the pregnancy and hope the best for their future as well.
Do you have anything you’d like to add?
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I couldn’t agree with you more!! My husband and I struggled for 6 years with infertility. It was always a dagger to the heart to hear ANOTHER friend is pregnant. I had a few amazing friends that were very sensitive, just like your friend, in telling me they were pregnant. It made the blow a little easier to take. BUT I had this one friend – they were trying for their second child for ONE MONTH. She was upset that it didn’t happen on their first try, and IN MY PRESENCE, said “but we’re supposed to be the fertile ones!” Can you believe it?! A FRIEND. A friend that knew our struggles and had heard the sadness and pains of our hearts. I wanted to run and cry and then kick her in the face. It still haunts me.
EMAIL! Email all the way. I’m not infertile, but I suffered a mid-2nd-tri loss, and I know the devastating hurt that comes from pregnancy announcements when you’re suffering from pregnancy-related issues. Email lets you cry in private and have an honest reaction to the news without having to immediately fake happiness to the person telling you.
Also, highly recommend hiding your infertile (or baby loss) friend from your FB feed, at least for baby updates. You can hide individual posts from individual people. Facebook was such a source of pain for me after our loss; I couldn’t go on for a long time and had a long list of hidden friends.
Along that line, let them bring up the pregnancy. Don’t talk about it to them unless they ask, and then keep it short and sweet.
And whatever you do, NEVER complain about the pregnancy to them. That’s such a slap in the face, when they’d take an entire BODY full of stretch marks to have a baby.
great post! I am not infertile but miscarried earlier this year. One friend emailed me a very sweet email when she found out she was pregnant. She was very sensitive to my feelings and also made note of our strong friendship. It was perfect and I am very happy for her, even though it still hard to read her blog’s posts about her ultrasounds, etc.
I love your suggestions. Personal, sensitive and caring is exactly what is needed. As a person who went through 12 years of infertility before having my first child, I remember feeling very alone. When another friend would “graduate” from infertility into parenthood I would often feel like I would be left behind.
I would encourage friends to look at what you have in common as a way to stay connected. My hope is that you will continue to bond through a desire to help all facing infertility. Instead of showing pitty, there is an opportunity to make a difference by advocating for access to fertility treatment and family-building benefits for all. What better way is there to let your friend know they are not alone.
All my best,
Davina
Fertility Within Reach
I think these suggestions — great ones, all — are *especially* important as those of us who are struggling with infertility announce our successes to each other. I think (er, I hope, since I’ve not yet had a successful pregnancy) that we get to experience a unique feeling of joy as a result of overcoming this specific hardship, and I think we owe it to each other to remember with great sensitivity that other people struggling with infertility haven’t been as fortunate in “conquering” it yet.
Here’s hoping that all of us get to experience that great joy and success!
The suggestions were great, but you should also suggest that those who get pregnant shouldn’t hide or disappear from friends who are TTC either. I’ve had this happen at least twice in the last 3 years and it hurt me so much to know that my “so called friends” were too uncomfortable to be honest, so they “lost touch” with me than deal with such a sensitive issue. Of course with social media, we found eachother again, ironically they were the ones who reached out to me. It was extremely akward to reconnect with them after I realized the real reason why we “lost touch”. It was so incredibly hurtful to know my infertility issues caused them to back away, especially since they both knew I’ve dealt with this type of news very graciously before. No matter how I may feel about my own issues, I would never begrudge a friend from thier happiness when they get pregnant nor would I ever make them feel bad either. As a result of their actions, I don’t consider them friends anymore and I was honest yet senstive enough to say so. You could imagine how uncomfortable it was for them to deal with that, but I kindly reminded them that I gave them the honesty that I wished and had expected from them in our friendship. I did wish them and thier new families the best and kept it moving. So please, if you care about a friend who happends to have infetility issues, take a moment and put yourself in thier shoes, think about how you would like to be told and treated upon hearing that news. Try to be sensitive, respectful of your bond, and most of all, just BE HONEST about annoucing your pregnancy. Let them deal with the news how THEY choose to, and as hard as it can be, try your best not to take it so personal.
Lovely post again Melanie! I completely agree with these. I was hurt several times by friends who announced it publicly without even thinking about telling us beforehand and other friends who told us and didn’t seem to acknowledge or consider that we might struggle to be ecstatic for them. It was so nice when a friend told me they were trying to get pregnant and then shared with me when they did long before they were ready to tell others. I was so happy to feel included and not just one of the masses or people. For me it seems to be easier to be able to join in the excitement rather than just have to hear them talk about it constantly. I’ve also taken several steps back from facebook and especially hidden people who can’t seem to talk about anything else. Keeping my distance from insensitive feeds helps keep my spirit up.
When I announced my pregnancy (at 40, after a miscarriage) my list of infertile friends was filled with those who had tried for 10+ years. I did a lot of research and my friends confirmed later: email. It gave my friends the space to grieve without having to put on a brave face for my sake. They could reach out to me when they were ready. They are some of the first friends I told, because I didn’t want them to feel like I avoided telling them (in case they heard from someone else.)
Best wishes, ladies!