Social media mogul Mark Zuckerberg announced through his personal Facebook account that he and his wife Priscilla Chan are expecting their first child.
The Facebook founder and CEO posted a photograph on Friday of the two of them together, showing Chan's new baby bump.
He also included a message expressing their excitement about the impending arrival of their daughter, as well as their heartaches in their previous unsuccessful attempt to conceive a child. Zuckerberg shared that he and Chan have suffered three prior miscarriages in the past two years.
"You feel so hopeful when you learn you're going to have a child," Zuckerberg wrote in the post.
"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."
Zuckerberg added that most people often do not discuss miscarriages because they are afraid that the problem would reflect on them or even distance them from others, suggesting that they must have done something to cause it. He said that this is why people chose to struggle on their own.
The Facebook CEO, however, said that instead of causing people to be distanced from others, discussing such struggles will bring people together in today's modern and connected world. It promotes tolerance and understanding, and it gives people hope.
When they began sharing their struggles with their friends, Zuckerberg said that he and his wife realized that many people also went through the same experiences as they do, and that they still went on to have healthy children in the end.
Zuckerberg explained that by sharing their experience with others will provide more people with the same hope that they felt. He said that he and his wife hope that it could help people to feel more comfortable about sharing their stories with others as well.
He also expressed his enthusiasm about Chan's pregnancy as it has now reached the stage where the risk of loss is only minimal. He said that they will share more about their experiences, especially when their daughter is ready to come out and meet the world.
