See? There, right there, you inject words that nobody else is saying. In my case, I told everyone I was pregnant and then not only did I have to deal with my own feelings when I miscarried at eleven weeks, I had to somehow deal with the disappointment of the other people for whom this baby was a big deal, which was difficult. The advice is nothing to do with pregnancy being shameful; it's to do with the interconnected webbiness of generations and people and hope and life and trying not to get everybody's expections up before the baby is reliably viable. For some people who suffer repeated miscarriages, it's about trying not to get their own hopes up - if they don't talk about it; if society isn't putting them into that box and labelling them pregnant, then it's easier to deal with if this one miscarries as well. It's nothing to do with pregnancy being shameful, and there's no rules that says people can't announce as soon as they find out (as I did) - just a lot of collected experience that says that that's probably, emotionally, the best way of going about it.
It does feel (perhaps irrationally) as though it's all actually more to do with not talking about distasteful stuff until you can't hide it under your jumper any more.
I don't get that at all, that being pregnant is shameful.
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Date: 2010-11-11 03:20 pm (UTC)See? There, right there, you inject words that nobody else is saying. In my case, I told everyone I was pregnant and then not only did I have to deal with my own feelings when I miscarried at eleven weeks, I had to somehow deal with the disappointment of the other people for whom this baby was a big deal, which was difficult. The advice is nothing to do with pregnancy being shameful; it's to do with the interconnected webbiness of generations and people and hope and life and trying not to get everybody's expections up before the baby is reliably viable. For some people who suffer repeated miscarriages, it's about trying not to get their own hopes up - if they don't talk about it; if society isn't putting them into that box and labelling them pregnant, then it's easier to deal with if this one miscarries as well. It's nothing to do with pregnancy being shameful, and there's no rules that says people can't announce as soon as they find out (as I did) - just a lot of collected experience that says that that's probably, emotionally, the best way of going about it.
It does feel (perhaps irrationally) as though it's all actually more to do with not talking about distasteful stuff until you can't hide it under your jumper any more.
I don't get that at all, that being pregnant is shameful.