To be pregnant just returning to work from mat leave?

[Alicia870]

I have a 5 month old dc and will be returning to work part time when she is 8 months old. I have such a desire to get pregnant again as both my husband and I want babies close together and feel I am really in the baby mindset and really want to continue focusing on my family.

If it weren't for work, I probably would be really excited at expanding our family but does it look bad that I would be returning after a 9 month period of leave and telling them I'm pregnant again?

I know a number of women who have done this. Several were already pregnant by the time they returned from maternity leave. One went back for 4 weeks and was still entitled to company maternity pay but she worked for a very prestigious employer in a senior role. I doubt their bosses were happy, but they accepted it and the mothers are happy with their decisions.

Over the last 3 years four women who work in departments close to the one I work for have done this. One was the Head of Service. In fact she came in to post pregnant gadot her mat leave comeback, went off again and shortly after that return got a promotion in another Local Authority!!
I wouldn't worry about it.

Don't worry about it at all. What difference is it to come back for 6 months, a year, two years? You just do what's right for you. If I worked with you I wouldn't bat an eyelid. There is nothing unprofessional about having a baby!

I have had jobs in the past that were quite specialist and would have needed a lot of cover and would have affected the team if I'd taken extensive time off. But thankfully this job isn't really like that so it's not so much that I would be worried about it affecting my colleagues directly. It just wouldn't as it's not that type of job. It's more so the look of it that I worry about but I keep coming back to life is short and have your babies when u can!

I had one employee do this, but we'd worked together for so long that we were friends and I knew she wanted 2 children close together, so it was barely a conversation. When she told me about her first pregnancy, I knew she'd be gone for a year and then, all things being well, back for a short time then gone again. But I also knew that once she'd had the 2, she'd be back and as brilliant as ever. And if she wants to go for a third at some point, then I'd be happy for her. And my business requires the staff to have a lot of training, so it's not easy to replace for mat leave but that's part of running a business and it's nothing to do with the individuals who need to take leave. But I've had 2 kids so I completely understand.

I think it's piss taking tbh - it's not unreasonable for your employer to expect you to do the job they hired you for. I think your colleagues will resent you and it will impact on future career progression
Whether you think it is taking the piss or not is irrelevant.What if colleagues resent. Colleagues come and go over time. Only the OP will know about the career progression. However companies will happily downsize and get shut of you if they need to without a second glance. Her children will still be there once the job has gone.

We wanted to do this, and I also didn't like how the company was going, so I chose not to go back and become a SAHM for a while.
However we haven't managed to get pregnant yet, so if I had gone back it wouldn't have been as close together as we hoped it might have been
Currently looking at a part time job in my previous area, before I changed jobs due to moving across the country to be with DH.
Life is too short, do what you want and what is right for you as a family. Jobs, however good, come and go.

We are all going to be working until we drop so what’s a couple of years out on maternity leave?

If OP is in her 30s, she probably has another 35 years to work and pay taxes.

I returned to work two months pregnant...they were fine about it....but it did mean I missed a promotion...I should have gotten! I never returned after having my second..

and exactly what the pp said...a company will not blink an eye if they need to let you go...so I would not worry too much about returning pregnant.

I think some people are a little too wrapped up in their jobs! A company isn’t a sentinent being with thoughts and feelings. Work colleagues and managers come and go, you will be forgotten within days if you left.

Don't even consider work - it's only a job and life is more important. Especially in your 30s, I'd say crack on, who knows how long it will take. You'll still be entitled to the same mat leave, etc. Make sure once you're back that your pension contributions etc are up nice and high as they are obliged to pay this for you whilst your off

*you're

It’s not illegal and it’s far from unusual. I know many people who have done it. Also, just to look at it from another perspective, I think there’s a lot to be said from a career point of view for getting the baby stage of your life done and dusted in a short space of time. Because the truth is, when you’ve had one and you go back, colleagues expect you to have a second one. You’re a ticking baby bomb. If you get it all over with relatively quickly, you can then focus fully on building your career back up again.

100% do it. I love my career but would have done this if I could (like PP, IVF hasn't worked for me yet- my first DS is 2).

Over my career I've realized no matter how well you get on with your colleagues/like your boss/work hard- you are disposable. Put yourself and your family first.

Careers span 50 years, your fertility does not.

I think I'm just grumpy about it because DH ended up doing a lot of extra work to cover a colleagues mat leave and at the time all I could think about was that her time with her baby was costing DH time with his.
But I think I'm probably unreasonable.

You are! As annoying as that must have been, you realise that’s not your DH’s colleague’s fault, surely - she’s got a legal right to the time off, and it’s the fault of your DH’s employer for failing to put in place adequate cover arrangements.

Plus you don’t know her circumstances - she could have suffered through anything in the past - infertility, multiple miscarriages, baby loss.

A colleague came back from 1st ML 5 months pregnant and got pregnant 3 months after coming back from 2nd ML. Perfectly entitled and legal but as she was in a specialist area in the NHS our manager was secretly concerned she was going to make a habit of it. It was hard to get cover that encompassed her speciality and there was a lot of disruption to the patients she dealt with. Thankfully she left it at 3 dc!

Check your maternity policy etc just to make sure you’re entitled to everything.
If you work for a medium/large sized company, then it’s just the way it goes, sometimes we’ve had 4 or 5 Mat leaves in our dept at the same time, sometimes it’s just the 1. Yes, it’s a huge challenge as our dept is nearly all women, but it’s life! I imagine it’s harder work for a small company though.

evaperonspoodle - I get that you are saying that patients are inconvenienced but should your colleague have sacrificed her family life so that patients wouldn’t be disrupted?

When I quit nursing, they never got around to filling my post. I’m sure that had some effect on patient care but that’s not my fault. Should I have sacrificed my health and happiness to care for patients?

It’s not your colleague’s fault that adequate cover wasn’t put in place. She may have been a specialist but nobody is irreplaceable.

Your colleagues and bosses have no choice but to be publicly fine with it but will be rolling their eyes and possibly cursing you in private.

But as PP have said, you can’t run your life according to what suits your boss and colleagues! And we all know they wouldn’t plan their lives and business around what suits you.

I had three mat leaves within a short succession, but I worked for the NHS for 8 years before having the first baby, and between returning after the third until retirement they’re going to get at the very least 32 consecutive years of service out of me (presuming I stay in good health as I sail through my 60s.) Fertility/family first.

I didn’t go back between maternitys

Polarbear I totally agree, but just saying from the POV of our manager that it was highly disruptive and a concern that she would have 6 or 7 children back to back.

Do what’s right for you OP. Your company won’t be that loyal to you so go ahead and have your family however you wish. It’s none of their business.

buddy, not really relevant to the OP since she has said her absence won't cause problems for colleagues/employer, but in my dh's case, it wasn't a case of not bothering to get cover, more that they couldn't recruit and train someone else and have them work at the same level as the employee on mat leave, in the time she would be off. No, that's not the employee's problem, it's just that sometimes two back to back absences can really hit a small business or affect the lives of other people.