My husband and I have been trying to have a baby for the last few years now. We’ve had a lot of trouble. We’ve seen a bunch of specialists and we’re both perfectly healthy according to doctors and there’s no reason we shouldn’t be able to conceive. In our first year of trying I miscarried shortly before the 3 months mark. We had chosen to not tell anyone until 3 months in case this happened. I was glad we did because I didn’t want to have to talk to other people about this. Then 6 months later I miscarried again at 9 weeks, and then some months later I miscarried for the third time at 11 weeks.

That third miscarriage was incredibly hard on my husband and I. I started feeling really crappy about myself and my husband just didn’t know how to help me. So he called my mother and she flew across the country and helped me. My mum had had no idea we were even trying for a baby (like every body else). When my husband and I started trying again after that 3rd miscarriage I was talking to my mum the whole time about things. I was scared and needed her. My husband had no problem with me talking to her about this.

We had a fourth miscarriage some months later when I was 17 weeks pregnant. We still hadn’t told anyone except my mum by that point even though our plan was originally to start telling people at 16 weeks. I was just scared, my husband understood and told me to wait as long as I needed before we started telling other people.

The fifth time we got pregnant things seemed to finally work out. When we hit 20 weeks I finally started feeling comfortable to start thinking about telling people. My husband suggested telling my best friend as a start. So I did and after a week I decided to tell family (both his and the rest of mine). But, then I had some minimal spotting and got scared again even after the spotting stopped and the doctor gave me an all clear.

I’m now nearly 29 weeks along and I’ve finally really started showing and truly can’t hide my pregnancy anymore. I think the fact that I finally really look pregnant has helped me feel more secure and like I’m not going to loose my baby. I know it’s been a long time not telling people and feel bad about that. But, it’s not like anyone missed out on any special moments (all ultrasounds and stuff like that have only been attended by my husband and even if we’d told people earlier they wouldn’t have joined us anyways). I can still show them ultrasound pictures and we have a tape of the heartbeat too.

We told the rest of my family and his yesterday. Everyone was really happy for us. They were a bit surprised we waited so long, but we said something along the lines of ‘we had some trouble getting this far along and we just wanted to be sure’ and everyone accepted that. Everyone, except my MIL. She’s furious that we didn’t tell her sooner. She doesn’t know my mum knew early on, so as far as she knows everyone just found out. My husband has been trying to get her to see reason and is 100% behind me on this. But, she’s blaming me and saying I’m keeping her grandchild away from her and a terrible DIL. So now I feel bad about my choice to wait to tell people. I didn’t think people would be so angry. I’d get it if we were hiding a baby that’s here from them, but we didn’t. I’m not going to keep the child from them. But for some reason my MIL thinks this is the same thing.