Still too afraid to tell anyone about sub pregnancy
Hello, I'm nearly 25 weeks pregnant after 2 TFMRs, 3 rounds of IVF PGT-M and 1 MMC. I'm extremely happy and grateful to have gotten to this point, but I'm feeling increasingly isolated and anxious as I don't feel able to share the fact that I am pregnant with many people. I can't even say the words "I'm pregnant".
The only people I have told personally are my parents - over the phone as they live several hours away and even then they knew we were going for a transfer so all I had to say was that so far, the transfer had worked. I also emailed my manager at work at about 7 weeks because I was feeling really sick. Apart from that I've told no one. My mum told my siblings on my behalf. My partner has told his friends and has dealt with telling his side of the family. They live closer to us but I don't feel comfortable talking to them at all about this pregnancy as they made things very difficult for me while we were going through everything the past couple of years. I'm mostly trying to avoid them to be honest and direct any questions about the baby through my partner.
I'm in a really weird position now where I know I have to tell the rest of my family and friends but I just can't. I feel like as soon as I tell people it will all go wrong. I also don't feel like I can handle people's reactions, especially not if they are excited. Part of the difficulty with the rest of my family is that none of them know what we have been through over the past couple of years. From my side, only my mum and dad know about the TFMRs. I felt it was best to keep it a secret as I have a brother with a milder, but still pretty severe version of the condition I TFMR for who I will need to care for when my parents are gone. I dont want him thinking that I wish he didn't exist or anything like that. So it seemed best to not tell most of my family because of the risk they'd say something.
Since none of them know what we've been through though, I'm struggling with feeling like I'll be expected to act "normal". I also feel like I have to try to appear completely normal so no one suspects anything. I just don't know if I can do that. Another thing is that I find it really triggering when people talk to me as if this is my first pregnancy. My MIL has been doing it constantly and she knows this is actually my fourth pregnancy and I've been through 2 L&Ds before. I've been finding it really difficult and upsetting. I'm so worried that if I tell a bunch of people that don't even know our history, I'll have to be prepared to deal with even more comments like that and I don't know if I can.
I just don't know what to do about it. I wish I could just feel normal and tell everyone so I can be a bit less isolated. I feel really guilty that my grandma, best friend etc. don't know I'm pregnant, but my in-laws and their extended family (who I'm pretty sure don't even like me) do! I know I'm running out of time to say anything and it's already going to look weird I've waited so long. Did anyone else have trouble with this? I'm finding it really hard to get anyone who does know to understand why I'm too terrified to say anything so I just feel completely alone.