WWYD - colleagues asking if I’m pregnant

[Starslighted]

This is more of a WWYD.

I found out I’m pregnant last week, so I’m only 5 weeks pregnant atm.

I did an early test because I had a busy week with work socials, both team and clients, and wanted to check before I went out night after night for several nights. So naturally, I didn’t drink at all when I was out and for three of the meals, I barely ate my food (one dinner was steak which I had pre-ordered as medium rare, another dinner was at a Japanese restaurant where the sharing menu was mainly sushi and the third was a lunch with again more raw fish).

Colleagues picked up on that and this week I have had 3 different people ask me if I’m pregnant. I’m not fussed about waiting until 12 weeks to share the news and I don’t mind sharing earlier…but not as early as 5 weeks when it is still so very early and anything can go wrong. Two of my colleagues I brushed off the question (“I wish”, etc) but with the third I just said “it’s too early to be sharing the news but yes”.

I find it incredibly rude to ask such a question when the person who is pregnant may not be ready to share, but I’m now getting really worried that news of my pregnancy is going to spread when my own parents don’t know and I’m so early in the pregnancy.

Really rude to ask. I’ve asked before because I could see she was struggling with morning sickness and I was like, are you pregnant or is it something else going on? If you are pregnant, let me help you out because I’ve been there. If not pregnant can I drive you to the doctor! I certainly never shared with anyone else that she was pregnant.

Currently colleague is on maternity leave. She never shared she was pregnant and I thought she was but never asked. She works in a different department to me so it’s so inappropriate to ask.

So rude to ask! The only answer is “are you calling me fat?” And watch them squirm

What has the food got to do with it?!

Its rude to ask, it was your choice to tell them.

Well if her actions told them, they didn't need to ask, did they? No reason for them to know, it's just sheer nosiness.

I’d find it massively rude if it was just normal colleagues, absolutely none of their business and a very personal question to ask someone. If they were also friends as well as colleagues then I wouldn’t be offended, but I would definitely lie and say no. I’m not against telling people early, but should anything happen to the baby before the first scan, you’d only want to be having that conversation with loved ones.

On a night out one of my friends said the old chestnut "I'm on antibiotics' everyone knew she was probably pregnant but we said nothing it was up to her to tell us when she wanted, which she did.

OP do you think your parents would find out? I've never worked anywhere that was close enough to my family that it might pass through the grape vine. If you think your parents will find out I would tell them

@lieselotte - yes she was a bit. I happily gave up that particular 'friendship' when I split with my exH.

You could do what my friend did before she told me know she was pregnant and say you are on antibiotics which you can't drink whilst on. As soon as she told me that I knew but I didn't ask her, and she is one of my oldest friends.

Well this is the thing - quite often you do suspect someone is pregnant but you don’t say anything. An old colleague of mine had a very early bump for her second child and she didn’t tell anyone until after 12 weeks but no one asked, even though it was obvious. Recently another friend of mine who always drinks stopped drinking. I suspected but didn’t ask.

You can suspect, but it’s the asking that I find inappropriate. We are a friendly team but it’s still a personal question.

I’d have either driven to avoid crap questions around drinking, or said something up front like, have to collect husband from (random place) later and driving, so can’t drink.
pre raw fish- easy just say don’t like it. Steak one say you feel a bit odd and don’t fancy it now and comment how stupid it is to have to preorder

on no account would I tell colleagues I was pregnant at that stage. It is way more difficult to deal with an early miscarriage (which is common) if you’ve let loads of people know. Personally I tried not to consider myself pregnant till I got to 12 weeks at all- but I think attitudes have changed in last 25 years.

So rude and unacceptable! What on earth is the culture of your workplace?

Yes, good idea. Shrug and say, “I dunno. I’m having a lot of unprotected sex, so it’s possible”.

I like this.

’Why are you?’
that deflected one person I know

They shouldn't ask, and no way would I have confirmed it before telling my own parent.
I appreciate that you found it hard to lie, and so do I. But still I'd lie rather tan tell a colleague before those closest to me.

They shouldn't have asked, but I never wanted to lie either. I took the attitude of not lying but not announcing either. So if asked direct I told the truth.

When it was <12 weeks I gave a caveated answer, "yes, but it's really early days and anything could happen so not taking it for granted". That mostly stopped people asking any further.