Our society has become very skilled at silencing the journey of motherhood. With shutting down discussion from the discovery of two pink lines to how hard pregnancy is and then all the way through the post-partum stages, we have created very serious problems, two of which I will address: shame around pregnancy loss and higher abortion rates. The solution? Talk about it and put an end to silencing and shaming women.
It is extremely rare for an expecting mother or couple to talk about or announce her pregnancy before the first 10 to 12 weeks. In some cases, nothing will be said until after the baby’s gender is known, putting the mother around 20 weeks. Ask yourself, why? Why is it that this has become our society’s standard response?
The answer is simple: Society prefers to silence the journey of motherhood because there is a chance of loss and nobody wants to know about it. Society would rather a woman silently suffer alone when in reality, there are masses of women who have experienced pregnancy loss and could be there to lift up and support one another.
Pregnancy loss is never a woman’s fault and yet society is so good at making her believe it is. Instead, if a woman were to be made to feel accepted and loved for sharing her news from the moment she sees two pink lines and when pregnancy loss comes her way, she won’t have to feel isolated and everything she believes about herself and her body won’t have to be shattered. For these very reasons, I decided to share my pregnancy the night I saw two pink lines. If I were to lose this pregnancy, I wouldn’t want to do it alone and I hope I will have created a space and become a person women who’ve experienced loss can come to.
Deciding when to share a pregnancy is a personal decision and there is no right or wrong about when to announce a pregnancy. What is wrong is making a woman or couple feel like they can’t announce and share their joyous news early. Yes, there is a higher risk of miscarriage in the first 12 weeks, but I know firsthand how a pregnancy is never safe.
You can be almost 21 weeks, like I was, and discover your baby no longer has a heartbeat. Until that baby is in your arms, not one second of their precious life is secured, and even then, anything can happen. So again, no one should ever be made to feel they can’t share their pregnancy with family, friends, or even the whole world should they so desire. I plea with you and the world, stop silencing and shaming the journey of motherhood.
An even bigger issue we have created in trying to force mothers to stay silent about their pregnancies is that of abortion. Pregnancy is already a secret for many during those early weeks and because it is, no one really knows or talks about the developmental stages of a baby during that time. With the lack of discussion, early pregnancy especially suffers and even becomes terminated by abortion.
I will not be debating or discussing the various reasons why someone may feel they are justified to have an abortion. No. I am here to raise awareness of the serious harm we are causing to the thousands upon thousands of children who are murdered each year because we try to hide and silence those who talk about early pregnancy.
With the silence surrounding early pregnancy also comes ignorance and a lack of education. You see, most women discover they’re pregnant around five weeks, and guess what? I am five weeks pregnant today so I have something to teach you. Whether or not you believe life begins at the moment of conception, it definitely begins when the heart begins to beat. Do you know when the heart begins to beat? It starts its rhythmic beat anywhere from five to six weeks.
In fact, when I was pregnant the first time everyone, including myself, was so confused. How could I be pregnant? My last period was in October and here we were at the beginning of December finding out I was pregnant even though I hadn’t had intercourse with my husband until we got married, November 27, 2019. Well, six weeks after we got married, on January 6th, we went in for an ultrasound so they could date my pregnancy.
Can you guess how far along I was? I was six weeks pregnant. You want to know what we saw and heard? We saw a heart beating and we heard a heart beating, and we fell in love. Our baby’s life had most definitely begun.
If early pregnancy were to be more widely shared and discussed, then I believe the life forming inside a woman’s womb would more likely to be seen as just that – life. I have no statistics or highly renowned articles to share and back me up. I have only my personal experience and what I also know about abortion.
The only way a woman can feel okay with herself in getting an abortion can be that she does not understand what she’s doing. She does not understand she is ending a life. She is literally stopping a heart. If understood I am so deeply confident abortion rates would decrease and maybe protection during intercourse much more intentionally used if a child is not wanted.
Seeing and hearing other women getting excited about and sharing their early pregnancies can help lower abortion rates because they will see how many other women view their miracle as life. Again, this is only something I believe. I have not done research to prove it and I don’t even know if that research exists, but if you open your mind to it, does it not speak truth to your heart and mind?
Our society has become very skilled at silencing the journey of motherhood. With shutting down discussion from the discovery of two pink lines, discouraging talk about pregnancy outside of “here’s what my bump looks like today”, and all the way through the post-partum stages, we have created very serious problems: shame around pregnancy loss and higher abortion rates.
Stop shaming and silencing women. Stop telling them they can’t share their pregnancy early. Stop letting them feel alone in pregnancy loss. Encourage discussion about early pregnancy and those early stages of life. Fight the flow society has created. Speak up, speak loud, speak love and support, and share every step of your pregnancy with the world.
