working while pregnant

[preggos]

Does anyone else feel very stressed working while pregnant? I am 27 weeks pregnant with my first baby and am a retail manager. I feel so overwhelmed just being pregnant not to mention working full time in a very demanding job. Is anyone else in a similar situation and feeling like it is just too much to handle?

Yep I was in exactly the same position as you. Manager in v busy gift, health & beauty retailer. I began to feel a little overwhelmed with everything but fortunately had an amazing team of people around me so delegation became the key word.

However I got to 28/29 weeks and decided that I would be neither use nor ornament over a busy peak period and using up my annual leave I left on mat leave at week 30. Best decision I made cos am now at 32 weeks and I have terrible heartburn, extreme tiredness, totally crazy hormones (so prob would have killed a random xmas shopper at some point ) and the beginnings of SPD.

If you have the holiday available think about using it cos retail at xmas is hell in a normal year without being heavily pregnant [sympathetic face emoticon]

Oh yes.. Am an investment banker and am used to working long hours and being able to juggle things perfectly. That went out the window literally 2 weeks after I got pregnant and I have been sick and feel like I have been in a fog ever since. I am now 20 weeks and signed off work..again.. I am thinking about using up my holiday I will accrue while on maternity leave and negotiating with hr to try and finish as soon as possible. I am no good to anyone at work and just end up very tired and stressed when I try to go to work.

Some people seem to sail through pregnancy though, some of my friends were going out for meals and parties while pregnant whereas I still have to be in bed at 8.30 every night! I think I have learnt by now that every pregnancy is different - not that some people cope with it better than others!

Yep, yep, yep!
I'm a care manager, managing a residential home and a supported living service, and i have gone from cool and calm (well, whilst at work anyway) to always being on the verge of either crying or punching something.
I'm approaching 30 weeks - and my intention (for financial reasons) is to work up until my due date. I may need to re-think that now!
The worst thing is the travelling to/from work. Due to volume of traffic/roadworks (arrrgggh!) i can be stuck in my car for up to an hour and a half each way. For the past couple of nights i've been ranting like a mad woman at other drivers and sometimes just crying with sheer anger and frustration!
I'm surprised that at my last check my blood pressure was fine. :o

Yep, I'm the same. I'm an accountant and finding month end really tough. I'm taking one week a month off from month 5 until my due date (so Nov, Dec, Jan, Feb) but I'm only able to take the quietest week of the month so I'd be less busy at work then anyway.

This month my assistant is taking 3 weeks annual/study leave combined and my boss is flying round Europe (supposed to be work related but think its a jolly really). So I'm running my department by myself, have effectively 3 full time jobs and just want to cry most of the time.

I keep getting basic maths wrong, can't work out the formulae in spreadsheets and generally can't think straight.

Having said all that, I'm feeling a lot more sorry for the retail and care home workers, that must be really tough being on your feet all day. Investment banking is more like my job and with both of those roles it's getting your head round the detail and the maths that seems impossible - I just can't be bothered to think that hard any more!

Anyway, it's lovely to have a thread to vent on and to give and get some sympathy. Roll on Christmas and then maternity leave!

i was the same when i was preggiw and i ended up starting maternity leave 2 weeks ealier than planned. i just thought, the money ill be losing for just 2 weeks isnt worth what it was doing to me having to commute 2 hours into work and then work in a place where noone had ever had a baby before so they knew nothing about pregnant women in the workplace.

basket i assume you live in London? i can totally relate to the rage of traffic problems when you're exhausted, heavily pregnant, and just want to get home (or to the office.)
in the last few days i have twice been stuck in unbelievable jams in central London, some of them stretching miles, with no escape any route. I have felt like screaming. today, because of the student protests, which have caused chaos round where i work, i have walked several miles - with painful Braxton Hicks much of the way. I'm 35 weeks and can't wait to call it quits.

hello ladies,

I"m in a very demanding job myself, and it is a job I started only 3 months ago. I'm in the period where I"m proving myself and boss is very happy however, I"m meanwhile 11 weeks pregnant. Luckily, my simptoms are not too bothering but I'm afraid it's gonna grow worse with time.
I think what will kill me is the 2.5hr commute every day...on busy central London tube...hush..

It's so reassuring to have read all of this - I have just had a 1 1/2 hour drive in to work (also central London) and come in to discover my boss is skiving, as usual, and has emailed me a ton of stuff to do that I don't understand and told everyone that I will get back to them during the course of this morning. Already have so much to do and had my own deadlines for lunchtime. I would usually just get on with it and be calm, but I feel completely panicked and so, so tired and think I may cry at work for the first time.

I'm 25 weeks and just so pleased that I am going on maternity leave early - I am due in March and taking all of next year's holiday before my maternity leave starts - I had anticipated that I wouldn't be able to cope with stressful job / sitting at a desk for 12 hours a day and the commute. Not sure how we will manage without the money I would have been paid for that holiday, but I decided that mine and the baby's health would benefit more from not being in this awful place!

Yeah it's horrible! I've had two rotten colds back to back. First one I did take one day off though could have done with the whole week (was coughing so much it was making me sick) but my also pregnant boss was signed off sick at the time (was off for 3.5 weeks)

Cold came back last week along with the snow - so everyone was already bitching about people not coming so thought I'd better make the effort despite feeling like shit! There's only 3 of us in our team (one being pregnant boss). She's feeling ill again and her midwife is worried about her (she was signed off with cold/chest infection before). Obviously I want my pregnant boss/friend to look after herself
but I am dreading her getting signed off again to be honest! We've had one of the new girls doing maternity cover start this week and so I am training her/trying to do my own work at the same time and all I want to do is be at home!

When I go home day before yesterday and just burst into tears on poor DP. Roll on maternity leave! Though I'm only 23 weeks so feels like that is a long long way away.. until I think about the prospect of trying to train two people who have never worked before and are fresh out of uni to cover 10 years worth of experience that is going on maternity leave and then it doesn't feel like nearly long enough... panic!

(feels good to get that off my chest!)