Hiding symptoms at work

[YogiBear13]

I'm currently 6 and a half weeks pregnant and whilst I haven't had any sickness, I've had some mild nausea and am hungry ALL the time. The nausea is much worse when I don't eat so I pretty much graze constantly as that's they only way to stop my stomach grumbling. I've just realised that at work on Tuesday and Wednesday I'm in meetings from 10:00-12:00, and then 13:00-17:00 on both days. There'll be about 5 people in the meetings, none of whom I really know as I've not been at the company very long. How can I sit and constantly eat in these meetings?? At the moment my nausea is worst at lunch times so typically I'm nibbling on my lunch all afternoon, only finishing it at about 5pm.

If I don't eat I will feel really sick, but I can't think of a way to take in snacks and my lunch and nibble at them constantly without looking unprofessional! There's no way I can eat a big enough lunch to fill me up all afternoon without it making me sick. How did other people deal with eating to keep nausea at bay, while at work?

Obviously I do appreciate that I have it easier than a lot of people who are actually throwing up

Take some think small and non noisy in like a banana, if there's coffee have biscuits etc

Do that for both meetings and say you skipped breakfast /lunch of asked (doubtful!)

My colleagues often eat in meetings

Something ... stupid phone!

Sympathetic as I'm also benefiting from eating to keep nausea at bay. I would maybe bring food that might do everyone as a treat for busy meetings - that way everyone will think your generous but also won't be as obvious if everyone is snacking away on fruit /biscuits etc . Also plenty of water has been helping me .

I bought various packets of nice biscuits for every management meeting for six weeks. They all thought I was great 😊

Agree, taking biscuits for everyone might be your best option to draw less attention as you won't be the only one eating.

Bringing things to share is a good idea, will definitely give that a go.

I think I'm just over thinking it as I've only been at this job a couple of weeks so still learning what the norms are and trying to make a good first impression

I remember when I was pregnant at that stage. Grazing constantly was the only way to keep the nausea at bay. Bringing snacks for all to share is a great idea. I think you've just got to go for it, otherwise you could end up feeling poorly. No one will put 2 and 2 together as you're new and they don't know you well enough yet.

Unbelievable - and very unprofessionally - someone at work suspected I was pregnant,
as I was eating a lot or grazing constantly. It was in the very early days as well.

They working in a different department and must have watched me at my desk. They sought out my boss and told them they thought i was pregnant!! Who on earth would do that? My boss told me and I was gob smacked. This woman had a child herself, so must have once been in the same situation. I later obviously admitted that I was.

It was particularly tricky as my boss had historically lost a 'last chance' baby a few hours after birth and used to make life hard for any pregnant women in her team. Such a shame for her, I think it just broke her in a way she was never able to mend from

Chewing gum or suck sweets?

Murray mints or boiled sweets, I lived off them at work for a while.

I used to take things like cashew nuts, mints and boiled sweets into meetings when I was at that stage of early pregnancy. I'm a grazer too so no one thought it was odd that I'd sit at my desk or in a meeting eating lots.

I brought some sea sickness bands from Amazon and just made sure I wore long-sleeved jumpers/dresses to hide them when I was at work. I found they really helped take the edge off the nausea.