I'd love your advice. My husband and I were TTC for 4 years and it took almost 3 years to complete 1 round of IVF due to NHS timescales plus a long delay due to Covid. Over the frustrating periods of waiting I found comfort in talking about our situation with close friends and family. However, as our treatment finally progressed I felt less and less keen to talk about it with anyone except my husband. I knew that if it was unsuccessful then I wouldn't particularly want to talk about it or be asked, and if it was successful then I would want to be cautious and wait 12 weeks before announcing anything. However, my very supportive friends and family are always asking "how's the IVF going??" and I've started having to lie or be vague just to maintain some privacy e.g. "no news, still waiting for the next stage". I brought this on myself by talking about it in the first place, but I really wish they would stop asking and just wait for us to share news when we choose to. I am thankfully now 5 weeks pregnant and really want to keep it to ourselves until 12 weeks (hoping we make it that far) but I don't know how to keep it a secret with everyone asking for updates all the time.
What can I say to them without giving the game away or being rude? Has anyone been in a similar predicament?
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Memo21
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Hey! We’ve just announced our pregnancy at 26 weeks!!! Lockdown has been amazing for keeping it quiet! 😆
I had a few people who knew about our ivf but if I ever didn’t want to talk about it when they said “anything happening?” I’d just casually say “oh nothing exciting”
Saying things are delayed to to a covid backlog with a fake “god it’s so annoying looks like it won’t be for a while yet” will do the trick.
There’s no need for any kind of serious “don’t ask me I don’t want to talk about it” chat just fob them off casually otherwise things just turn into drama (in my opinion). Keep your story the same with all of them in case they talk to each other.
The reality is once you say it’s not happening for a while / nothing exciting to report, people get on with their own lives - people care but they’ve also got a helluva lot going on in their own lives they won’t think twice about it if you shut it down casually. It’ll be all the more exciting when you get to tell them you’re pregnant 🎉🎉🎉
Wow, you did well to keep it a secret that long! Congratulations! Thanks for the advice, I will continue to be vague and hope they get bored of asking and move on!
Hey first of all, congrats !! 🥳I never talked to anyone about IVF really apart from hubby. They knew we were TTC and thinking about IVF, but same as you I didn’t want to talk about it.... if anyone asked I’d just be vague and say ‘still some tests, waiting for the next stage, not sure when’ and leave it at that. No one knew we had done anything until the second round, and then only my mum and one very close friend.... and not much detail. when we finally did get our BFP I told my mum at 9 weeks as I knew how anxious she was but no one else till 12 weeks. Just vague it off I’d say
Hope it all goes well x
I didn’t have ivf but after 3 years ttc & mc’s I think everyone just thought we had given up ttc nobody suspected we were pregnant I told everyone at Xmas at 17w I had been to 4 scans in that time & midwife apps secretly.
We have exactly the same situation with our friends and family- no pregnancy to hide yet but if it was me I would probably say ....we will know more in a couple of months- having a break with treatments and just enjoying the process. You can explain why you hid it later- it’s a roller coaster that you want to protect family and friends from, they all get their hopes up too.
I wish you all the very best and congratulations, what a special time to share just between the two of you- enjoy x
Congratulations! We also kept ours secret until about 20 weeks. Again Covid and lockdown helped with that.
The only people we told were people that I would have told if something went wrong, so my best friend and 2 other friends who also struggle with infertility issues and in particular reoccurring miscarriages, so it felt ok talking to them because they get it.
But agree just fob people off and keep it vague. Wear baggy clothes if you end up seeing anyone (obviously no bump yet although the pessaries did a good job on making me look pregnant very early on).
However with my mum I was just able to say 'I'm ok, I'll talk about how it it went when I'm ready' and she is the type of person that respects that and didn't ask anymore questions.
Wishing you all the luck in the world and lots of baby dust heading your way.
On the big plus silver lining side it's a nice secret to have. Xxx
We had been trying for four years and it was on last 3rd fresh cycle that we we’re successful. I told close friends and had to tell work. Friends would ask and I’d give them updates but I was always vague. Like you I didn’t like the questions and soon regretted telling them. Friends we’re ok with this and soon stopped asking. Your friends should understand. I never told them when I was going in for embryo transfer. I’d just be vague. It was also a difficult pregnancy to begin with as I started off with twins and sadly lost one at 8 weeks. So I waited til after 12 weeks to announce pregnancy and now have a gorgeous 2 year old boy.
So like others have said just be vague. Don’t stress about the little things. Enjoy the pregnancy. Wishing you all the best.
Completely understand what you are going thru. 5 years TTC, 3 years until we finally got to retrieval (shy to start husband and lost my mom in the midst - took a break). Kept most lines of communication open with my close friends. Beginning of 2020, my husband and I made a plan to try naturally for 6 months and then do IVF - not tell anyone. Covid came... which I thought could help... in some ways it has (less events to have to hide, easier to sneak in all the shots and appointments since we are lucky to be wfh). However, doctor had us under strict orders from the start to end of “treatment” to stay home. Prior to the start, we had our close “safe group” and were relatively socially while distanced during covid. Since October... I am pretty isolated. We weren’t able to spend holidays with our large and cultured family who live within a 10 mile radius. We’ve been shamed since. My friends and extended family think we are absolutely covid crazy. And now that we are (still privately) pregnant (12 weeks today yay!) and considered “normal”.... no one is around. I also add, we had to tell my father, MIL and brother what we are doing and they have not been as supportive as we had hoped. Past few years I’ve suffered a lot of family loss and now with all this I definitely feel alone. Never imagined my pregnancy would end up like this. I see The benefit to both ways of going about this. I like having the privacy and not feeling pressured to share news but the judgement and loneliness has been painful.
I wish you strength. I wish everyone on here much strength. We will all get thru this and see better days.
We had to tell the grandmas early because my mum kept on asking and I did not like that. I explained that and why I don't feel comfortable to share this yet and we will let them know once we have crossed the 12 week mark, so kind of kept it quieter until then. I had a high risk of mc and said I will let the supportive asking people know once we know we are on safer grounds. We told a few friends at 16 weeks and some where sad we did not tell them earlier and now a few more know and my work because it is very obvious and I am having a high risk pregnancy, so I needed to tell them in case things go wrong. There will be loads of people really pissed off we did not tell them before birth but well...you do not owe anybody any information. Not on IVF, not on pregnancy. This is all stressful enough, so do whatever you feel comfortable with.
Hi. Just want to say congratulations on your amazing news. I did the same where i told all family and friends when i started my first cycle and i was quite naive in thinking it would work first time and the minute i got a negative pregnancy test I regretted it as i kept gettin calls to ask how i was doing and feeling. When they all asked couple weeks ago i said ‘im taking a break now and not sure when il get back to it, not something i want to do any time soon’, i said this even though im hoping to start my cycle sometime this month. Noone has asked me since then. Maybe try this and it might work for you. I found this too though, that when u open up the questions of infertility or ivf you get asked about it alot and at times you dont want to talk about it. Good luck with the rest of ur pregnancy x
Hi Memo21, I can definitely relate to how you are feeling! My partner and I also shared that we were going through IVF with more people than intended due to Covid cancelling our first round. We naively thought we would have quick success with IVF...3 transfers later and we have certainly been proven otherwise.
By the time we got to our third transfer we ended up lying to many people, telling them we were 'taking a break' from IVF. It was difficult to do this as so many friends were invested in our journey and we knew they only asked us questions because they cared. However, we did find it much better going through our third cycle without everyone knowing; only our parents and siblings knew. Could you perhaps tell people you are taking some time out? I'm sure once you announce your pregnancy and explain the reasons for you keeping this a secret, people will understand. This is your journey, not theirs, and it's important that you go through this in a way that is most beneficial to your health and wellbeing.
Keeping IVF/pregnancy a secret is really tricky when people know you have been in the TTC journey for a while. My partner and I discussed this in our recent video (see from 1:30-3:10) - will share the link below if you are interested.
Congratulations on your pregnancy! Look after yourself and remember to put your own needs first xxxx
We told friends and family about cycle 1 and 2. It was soul destroying seeing people's reactions to our negatives though so we decided to keep cycle 3 to secret from family and friends. Work knew as we'd both had time off, but friends and family had no idea. Whenever they asked about our next cycle, we just said that we were having a break and leaving it until the new year.
We gave our families an amazing Christmas surprise by wrapping up a 12 week scan photo and giving it to them in a Christmas box. Was so amazing as we never dreamt that we'd get the chance to surprise them like that with going through IVF. Their reactions were something that I'll never forget.
We told some friends at around 16 weeks, but didn't officially announce on social media until the week after our daughter safely arrived. Lockdown was amazing for keeping my pregnancy a secret. xx
I just wanted to say thank you for the comments on this thread as they've been really helpful. We have just been through our first round of IVF, which unfortunately failed, and actually one of the hardest things was having to tell other people it had failed. Everyone had such conviction it would work first time. I didn't like having to keep saying the same things over and over, and with some friends we were trying to sound 'ok with it all' and not as gutted as we really felt, because I felt embarrassed at our grief over an embryo that didn't even stick. For those who have had no problems conceiving that can be hard to empathise with. I feel guilty though because everyone was just trying to be supportive and caring and they didn't do anything wrong.
I will definitely use the tips mentioned to be a lot more vague about our second round, and even with parents and my sister we won't tell them the OTD because it was so awkward knowing they were on tenterhooks waiting for the result. Even if it had been positive, we would have preferred a few days to get our heads around it. In a non-assisted pregnancy you don't generally tell your parents the day you find out!!
It's such a tough balance in IVF with getting the support you need alongside the space that you want. Best of luck with your pregnancy Memo! xx
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first of all, congrats !! 🥳I never talked to anyone about IVF really apart from hubby. They knew we were TTC and thinking about IVF, but same as you I didn’t want to talk about it.... if anyone asked I’d just be vague and say ‘still some tests, waiting for the next stage, not sure when’ and leave it at that. No one knew we had done anything until the second round, and then only my mum and one very close friend.... and not much detail. when we finally did get our BFP I told my mum at 9 weeks as I knew how anxious she was but no one else till 12 weeks. Just vague it off I’d say 
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