Is this work stress or pregnancy hormones?

[Jammymare]

The past week has been a real struggle for me emotionally and I don’t know what the root cause is in order to try and fix things.

Like lots of others, I’ve been working from home since March 2020. This change happened 3 months into a new role after a horrendous restructure process which definitely caused a lot of stress. I feel like I’ve become increasingly isolated from the wider team, our weekly hourly team meetings have gradually been eroded and I haven’t actually spoken to anyone in my team for over two weeks now. I’ve also had no formal appraisals since the start of the pandemic, just monthly catch ups with my line manager (3 different line managers in the past 2 years).
In May 2021 a colleague went on maternity leave and I was given some of her work to cover along with my own, I’m still doing this additional work.
I let my manager know I was pregnant in January. I’m now 26 weeks and planning on starting maternity in May.
My manager still hasn’t communicated the plan for my maternity cover/handover and so I feel unable to tell the clients I support about my pregnancy. There are a number of projects due to complete in June, and I won’t be here to process the final claims, but the project managers are blissfully unaware
This week my line manager has been on leave and the expectation is that I will be covering his inbox too. I was answering emails at 10pm last night and was logged back in by 7:30am this morning. This is unsustainable. I’ve also been asked to train an apprentice for 3hrs a week, and to support a more junior colleague a piece of work during our busiest period of the year in April.
I am using annual leave to reduce my working days to a 9 day fortnight, but what’s the point when there is no corresponding reduction in workload? My leave in April was declined anyway due to deadlines and lack of cover.
I’ve been in tears the past few days. I’ve had to step away from my desk as I think I’ve had a bit of a panic attack at the amount of queries coming in.

But I don’t know how much of this is genuine work stress and how much of this is tiredness from lack of sleep and pregnancy hormones. My GP can’t prescribe anything for the insomnia so basically it’s suck it up and get on with it. I don’t want to be that person that uses the pregnancy excuse to coast at work, but equally I don’t know what i can reasonably ask of them in terms of adjustments.

I have booked a 1:1 with my manager next week and I really need some help advocating for myself.

You sound over worked. I think you need to ask for meeting with your line manager and say you cant manage all of your normal job plus the extra within the same hours and something has to give, what should it be and b) you need to start telling project managers in your company that you are pregnant, remind them that from next week you are 10 weeks from being full term and it’s time to start making handover plans.

You sound like you are completely stressed with work. Yes you will have pregnancy hormones thrown on top of that but with the amount of work you’re doing anyone would feel the pressure.
It’s great you’ve got a meeting with your manager next week- I’d make a list of some points you’d like to discuss with them in advance, that way you are not thrown off by anything.
First up you need to directly ask their plan for your mat leave as you are now preparing to wind down and need to let your clients know who will be covering for you when you’re off and that it would beneficial for the next person to work alongside you for a short period of time so that they are also prepared.
Explain that you cannot work past your agreed hours. I wouldn’t even bring pregnancy into that as it’s not fair on anyone to work those hours.
Discuss the lack of staff meetings and explain for you, it was a great way of keeping in touch with the wider team, something that is definitely missed.
You can also raise the point of your workload, ask why you are still covering the extra work from your colleague as well as your manager as it should be split more equally.
You definitely do not need to raise or link this to your pregnancy other than their plans for you finishing up.
If they try to say you’re feeling this wan because you’re pregnant then stand your ground and explain the amount of workload and hours you’re doing is unacceptable.

Best of luck!

Over worked.
Get signed off until you feel OK u and your baby are far more important than any deadline etc.