I’m pregnant (not married) and I am really scared to tell my parents.

(Throwaway account)

Hi. I’m 29F. My boyfriend is 29M. In May we discovered that I am unexpectedly pregnant.

My boyfriend and I are in a healthy, loving relationship and have been very serious about each other. We had already been discussing getting married sometime in 2027.

Although this pregnancy wasn’t planned, from the start we embraced it and have been so excited about it. I know we will make such a great parenting team and bring our baby up in a home filled with love and our weird goofy sense of humor. I am still not at a point where I’ve announced it and very few people know. It’s essentially still a secret. However, I know that before the summer is over I’ll need to tell people.

For a little context, I grew up in a very strict Catholic family. We didn’t just go through the motions on Sundays, we had to live and breathe it. We were required to go to confession once weekly, prayed the rosary with my parents each night before bed, and often spent lots of time discussing catechism and learning how to “defend the faith”. As my siblings and I became adults, none of us stayed Catholic. My parents are aware of how we’ve all grown away from it. My dad especially expresses disappointment in all of us and also feels like a great failure himself, as he believes it was his duty to keep his children faithful and he will pay the price for this. Honestly it’s very sad.

My dad is so fiercely Catholic that when one of my sisters got married and decided to do so on a beautiful ranch rather than in a Catholic Church, he refused to attend. He did not go to her wedding. This was incredibly hurtful, not only to my sister getting married, but to lots of people in our family.

All that said, I know I need to tell my parents. It’s heartbreaking to me that the idea of sharing this is causing me so much stress and dread. I think my mom will be shocked initially and set back, but she will embrace it. She loves her grandkids dearly. I just know that my dad is going to be very upset. Ashamed, even. I think part of my fear in telling him is that I honestly don’t know what he will say or how he will act (this hasn’t happened in our family before). I just know that it will be negative. I know that I am going to be hurt by his reaction to this. I don’t know how to go about telling him or how to respond to his negativity. I don’t think he will disown me or shun me forever or anything like that, but I know he won’t be happy.

Which is very ironic considering his diehard pro life stance.

I just don’t know how to handle this. :(