Announcing a pregnancy can easily be considered one of the most exciting things a man or woman will ever do. It marks the day your life changed in the best way imaginable, and it’s the day that you proudly became a parent.
All of these big life changing moments often lead to parents announcing the pregnancy in some pretty extravagant ways. Some get creative and make a video; some take the surprise approach; and some host elegant, intimate dinners with their friends and family. The list of announcement possibilities goes on.
Truth be told, there’s nothing wrong with an expecting mom or dad being overexcited, overzealous, and optimistic about the road ahead. However, before you start filling balloons, dropping confetti, and popping champagne for your “we’re pregnant” extravaganza, think about those who don’t necessarily have it so easy.
Aela Mass is one of the many to face the struggles of getting pregnant. For four years Aela had tried to conceive. She underwent multiple IVF cycles, three devastating miscarriages, and countless setbacks–her road to pregnancy was far from easy. The good news is that after years, she’s finally expecting! While that news is as good to hear as any, she’s remained cautiously optimistic hitherto.
Mass recently shared her story of trials and tribulations of dealing with past pregnancies, the joy of learning she was finally pregnant, and what she expects in the months to come.
We implore you to read her story, and to always keep in mind that you deserve to celebrate a pregnancy, but you must also be mindful of others’ excruciating journey to do the same. You can read her tale of tragedy and uplifting redemption below:
I’ve always been a same-day sharer, or at least really close to sharing the news of my pregnancies within days of me finding out.
But not this time.
This time, I waited. I hadn’t planned to wait. I hadn’t thought that because I’ve miscarried three other times that I should wait. I still don’t think that. Some women feel that way, and that’s totally good if it works for them. But I waited, surprising even myself, because I was having a hard time trusting this pregnancy. It didn’t seem real. Even with all my numbers being excellent, I didn’t really believe any of it.
And it was a really weird place for me to be.
I’ve spent a lot of the last few years starting to believe that I couldn’t have a successful pregnancy. No matter how hard I wanted to be pregnant and how hard I tried to become (and stay) pregnant, it just never happened for me, so I stopped believing that it could.
Now, this is an entirely different feeling than worrying about miscarrying or having anxiety that something is wrong. I’ve been there, done that. For me, I struggled with trust. Sharing the news, speaking about the pregnancy … it meant that it was real. And it didn’t feel real.
As a way to protect myself from more pain on this journey, I had almost accepted a fate I didn’t want to ever be true. No matter how hard I tried to remain positive, no matter how many self-helpy affirmations I repeated to myself on a daily basis, the truth is that my inner voice had so strongly tried to protect my heart by convincing my mind that pregnancy wouldn’t happen for me — ever.
So when it did, when my home pregnancy test turned positive a week after my transfer, when my first HCG levels came in high at 436 and they wanted to see at least 75, when my second HCG levels came in at 2,437 and they wanted to see roughly 800, when we saw a strong heartbeat at 131 BPM and they wanted to see at least 100 … When all that happened, I needed to begin to dismantle the inner voice. And I had to do that before I could comfortably share what is supposed to be exciting news.
It was difficult to think of telling people and then hearing their congratulations when I wan’t really prepared to accept and respond to those well wishes. I wanted to be in a place where I could welcome the warm congratulations with equal enthusiasm and excitement and hope and joy — but I couldn’t do that just yet. I couldn’t say, “Yay, I’m pregnant!” when I didn’t feel the “yay” yet.
It wasn’t until a few days after we saw a strong heartbeat at seven weeks that I finally thought, OK maybe this is real. Maybe this is really, finally happening. Maybe I can be ready for the good news, even if I am late to my own party.
While announcing your pregnancy around nine weeks can still seem early to people, for me, it’s been a long nine weeks — but I am finally ready to feel the YAY.
Aela Mass’ story was originally shared on Babble.
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