How did you tell the people you work with about your pregnancy?

[LIG1979]

Hello,
I am 17 weeks pregnant and have got to the stage I need to formally tell people at work after someone guessed the other day. My boss, close work friends and a few key people already know but I am really unsure how to tell everyone else. (Had a mc last year and wanted to wait until the 20 week scan but if people are guessing or speculating, I would rather tell them than have the rumours going about whether I just got fat or I am pregnant.) It is really stressing me out as I don't want to tell any more people than those who already know but know I have to.

I work in a large company and I have a cross-functional role which means I work with a large number of different people at different levels and in different departments.

I am thinking about telling the people below me in a one-on-one first and then thinking about making the announcement to different groups at the end of different meetings and saying if anyone has any concerns they can speak to me one-to-one. Any thoughts or ideas?

I'm in a similar boat. Don't want to make a big announcement. My line manager already knows because I had bleeding so had several trips to hospital and the few people in the team I work in. But, as for everyone else, I'm just planning on leaving it for them to figure out if I'm pregnant or a great big pie eater.

Although, I'm in a different boat because it sounds like there are less people depending on me therefore less people to be concerned about my imminent departure.

Last time, the news got around without me having to do anything. Once a couple of people know, everyone seems to know.

Hi Pickle you are on the August thread too aren't you?

I am tempted by your idea of just leaving them to figure it out for themselves. I do work in a very male dominated company and hopefully they won't notice for a while. (It was a woman with children who guessed and said she could tell the difference between a too many pies bulge and pregnancy bulge.) Maybe I could tell a work gossip and wait for the news to spread by itself?

I emailed my immediate associates en masse at about your stage, and left the rest to either work it out for themselves or be told by other people. The grapevine seems pretty effective. I'm now 28 weeks and a few people have come up to me saying 'I've just heard -- congratulations', and it doesn't particularly matter whether the rest have clocked it or not.

I was sick in my bin next to my desk

Hiya, yes I am!

That's time the work gossip was my line manager and she managed to spread the news like wildfire. Was a bit annoyed that she also must have told hr and I wasn't planning on telling them until 20 weeks. But it saved a lot if effort.

The guy who sits next to me asked if I was ok because is been off/working from home so much. I told him I was pregnant and been sick/in and out of hospital. He was genuinely shocked. So I'm quite gutted that he clearly must have just thought is been eating too many pies!

tell the people who you give a shit about
email anyone else who needs to know professionally
don't bother with the rest!

I've only really told my boss and my team and a few others that I consider friends. Nobody else needs to be told properly and if they hear on the grapevine or guess, so what.

I have needed to let some people know for professional reasons (eg planning for maternity leave) and then it just comes up naturally in the conversation.

Thanks everyone for your responses - decided to tell my team today and then leave it with everyone else for now. Hopefully the grapevine will save me from having to tell people. I am sort of hoping my boss will tell his peers when they are doing planning work. Either that or they will get a shock when I leave in July.
My boss did ask if I could work from home during maternity leave - I did have to laugh!

I baked a cake and left it in the staff room with a note saying "I'm pregnant - let's eat cake". Did the job

everyone guessed before i was 7 weeks because i looked like crap and kept disappearing to spew

Work from home in your mat leave????!!
Now there's one I haven't heard before!
I take it said boss is childless?!

I dashed from the room to be sick and decided if I was going to be running off all the time I had to tell my manager. I was 7 weeks. Then I told my team (only a small company though) good job really cos a couple of days later after throwing up 10 times in one day I think they'd have guessed!

I had bad morning sickness and was told by a few people to go home and come back when I was better as they didn't want "to catch it". Told them they weren't likely to catch it and if I went home til "I was better" it could be a few months before I returned. They got the message.

I like the cake idea - not sure I would know how to bake a cake though.....

Iloveberries my boss is a guy with kids but never did maternity leave. I think unfortunately at the moment my boss is in denial about the idea of me going on maternity leave.

Luckily, I wasn't sick during the 1st few months but did feel terrible but it was during December and things were fairly quiet and everyone assumed I was tired and hungover from too much partying. I was also 'working from home' quite a bit when I felt terrible.

I am 11 weeks and have told my line manager but no one else yet. She is keeping it to herself til the 12 week scan (which is at 12+5 in fact) just in case (have had 2 MCs in the past). After the scan if all is well I will tell my team (I am team leader, and only started last autumn) after the next team meeting. Luckily for me my DH is giving up work to be the full time carer so I'll only be off for 3-6 months, depending on how I feel about it, which will reassure them somewhat. I think they'll be really happy for me but it is a bit dodgy timing wise as two other ladies will only just be back from ML and I am relatively new, plus there is no one who wants to step up and do my job temporarily so someone is going to get lumbered against their will! But hey ho, you can't plan these things.