Mark Zuckerberg is getting ready to update the family section of his Facebook page.
In a revealing post on his personal account Friday, the Facebook founder announced that after three miscarriages, he and his wife, Priscilla Chan, are expecting their first child.
Zuckerberg, 31, reflected on the couple’s difficult experiences with pregnancy in the post, which changes abruptly from celebratory announcement to meditation on the isolation that couples feel when they have a miscarriage.
“You feel so hopeful when you learn you’re going to have a child. You start imagining who they’ll become and dreaming of hopes for their future. You start making plans, and then they’re gone. It’s a lonely experience. Most people don’t discuss miscarriages because you worry your problems will distance you or reflect upon you — as if you’re defective or did something to cause this. So you struggle on your own,” Zuckerberg wrote.
He urged others going through the same experience to discuss their struggles (and not necessarily on Facebook).
“We hope that sharing our experience will give more people the same hope we felt and will help more people feel comfortable sharing their stories as well,” Zuckerberg wrote.
Zuckerberg did not say when the baby girl is due, or if he and his wife plan to raise her Jewish, but he emphasized that the pregnancy is “far enough along that the risk of loss is very low.”
Zuckerberg and Chan, 31, who is a doctor, had not previously discussed the miscarriages in public. Last year, Chan told Today that she wanted to be a mother.
“Yes, we would love to have kids. But we’re so busy taking care of other people’s children right now,” she said.
Zuckerberg ended his post on a positive note.
“Cilla and our child are both healthy, I’m extremely excited to meet her and our dog Beast has no idea what’s coming,” he wrote.
