First, why did anyone tell husband's family about it in the first place?

I would assume that at some point, the family would have noticed anyway.

Families are all different about information like that. I'm not even remotely close to my siblings, but I was visiting for Christmas when I got the go-ahead from my insurance for my reduction, and it never even occurred to me not to share the news. OTOH, I didn't learn my mother had a hysterectomy until five years after it happened. But she's almost pathologically private about stuff like that.