Signed of due to sickness - am I taking the pi**

[Riversun12345]

I was signed of for 2 weeks due to sickness and extreme fatigue

I am 10 weeks pregnant, due to go back to work at the end of the week

At the moment I really do not feel like I can go back, it takes me all I can to get through the day. The sickness has eased a little bit , but I am still getting sick and feeling awful

Am I taking the mick if I ask for another week or 2 ? I'm hoping by 12 weeks it will have eased of a bit more 😣

I know my work are annoyed with me, but I feel like I would go in , and end up getting sent home to be honest

Absolutely not! Those first few weeks are so exhausting and adding on nausea too it’s a lot on your body. Look after yourself and baby and don’t worry about work, they will not thank you for turning up that’s for sure!
I stayed off my first 12 weeks of this pregnancy I was also signed off. Don’t return until you feel well enough!

I don't have the answer but I feel for you. My HG was dreadful and I was signed off for 5+ weeks because my weight dropped and I was rotten with it. Do you know for a fact that your work are unhappy about your sickness leave?

@Ineedacoffee21 thank you for your reply. I'm going to phone the doctors during the week and hopefully they will sign me of again! It really os so physically draining . I remember bring tired with my 1st , but this is something else!

I feel the same OP, been off for a month and felt like I had to go back today. I don't know if I'm going to make it to the end of the day never mind week. I'm 16 weeks and have only had 2 or 3 decent days so no idea how this is going to pan out - my manager has been very kind but the guilt is unreal. Hope you start to feel better

I suffered from HG, exhaustion and weight loss throughout my 1st trimester and most of the 2nd.
Looking back, i was an absolute idiot to continue going to work every day. I made myself so unwell it was a joke.
I took 1 day off when i was supppsed to work a bank holiday and that was it.
If you feel awful, take the time off.
As someone who pushed through because of the guilt I can honestly say you dont get a prize for being a hero at the end.
Go with your gut and look after yourself, thats whats important.

Forget about what work think , even though you might think they are annoyed there is absolutely nothing they can do about it and they will soon forget about it once you’re back at work , in a few months time the time you were off will be a distant memory to them ! It’s only a job at the end of the day this is your health 100x more important . I assume they know your pregnant btw ?

Stay off.
If you go back chances are your performance will be shot to pieces so you may end up getting penalised for that down the line. That can't happen if you aren't there

Look after yourself

What do you do OP? How many hours do you work. I can't belive nobody has asked for these crucial facts before jumping in!

@flashbac I work in a high school so the days and hours are quite long and demanding. Also , being in a classroom doenst give me much time to get out and run and be sick if I need to be! I very rarely take time of , so feeling guilty , but the thought if trying to attempt to work at the moment is impossible

[quote Riversun12345]@flashbac I work in a high school so the days and hours are quite long and demanding. Also , being in a classroom doenst give me much time to get out and run and be sick if I need to be! I very rarely take time of , so feeling guilty , but the thought if trying to attempt to work at the moment is impossible[/quote]
Teaching?
If you rarely take time off and you are struggling (and it's not a case of anxiety/nerves about going back that resolve when you get back into work which your case doesn't sound like) than please don't feel guilty about taking the time you need.

I was signed off for weeks with this. Forced myself back when the sick pay ran out but WFH and was entirely useless. Went on maternity leave at earliest possible point. It was hell.

Thank you all for your comments. Makes me feel a little less guilty! Going to see how I feel by Wednesday/Thursday, which I doubt will be much better!

No you are not taking the mick, you look after yourself.

I’m a teacher and ended up hospitalised with HG because I thought I could work!! Ended up signed off for a couple months. Take the time off and listen to your body.

My experience is, it's futile to 'push on through'. The sickness gets worse the more tired you are. You need to listen to your body. If you're unlucky, you could end up in hospital. I certainly would have if I'd not given in to it. Hopefully you'll be OK after the first trimester. People do not understand. Just accept that they don't get it and worry about what you need to get through.

I started a new job in May, I'm currently 16 weeks pregnant. At 5 weeks pregnant I started becoming sick, I suffered through until 9 weeks pregnant. I would take a few days off and I would try to go back, like you I felt guilty. However this was the worst thing to do and made me so much sicker in the long run. I have been fully signed off work since week 9 and there is no sign of me being able to go back any time soon, I have been diagnosed with hyperemisis and on medication. Look after yourself and baby number one and do not feel guilty about work. It took me a long time to get into that frame of mind but at the end of the day the baby is the most important thing to me and to look after them I have to look after myself. Hope things improve for you soon, it's not easy.

Hi all, thank you all for your precious responses, i did get signed of again as I just wasnt well enough to be in work.

I'm due to go back on Friday, and unless there is an amazing change within the next 3 days I doubt that will happen.

As I'm not 12 weeks I thought the sickness would be easier of , but clearly not 😥

I'm due to break up for Christmas on 17th, so I'm thinking of getting signed of till then, hoping that by the time Christmas break has finished I will be feeling A LOT better

Is this the right thing to do , or should I try and go back ? (Although I will be having yo run out mid lesson to get sick )

I was signed off from about 6-14 weeks.

THe only reason I left the house during that time was to go to the GP to get the next certificate (20 years ago so nothing electronic).

I was being sick up to 10 times a day, including getting up at night, and was continuously nauseous. I spent most of that time in bed. Things like the phone ringing or the front door bell set me off.

I am going to ask the obvious - have you tried any medication? It wasn't so much of a thing with my first, but with my second it was a lifesaver (especially with the 2 yo needing looking after).

IF people haven't experience MS/HG they really do not understand the impact that it has. You do whatever you need to do to look after yourself and the baby.

Just do it. There's no prizes for powering through. I tried, made myself ill, no one at work thanked me for it.
Some people sail through early pregnancy but many others don't. Just because some pregnant women are fine to work as normal, doesn't mean you are- take it easy, listen to your body and put yourself first.

@Seeline thank you for your reply
Yes I was prescribed medication, but it didn't ease my symptoms and made me feel even more exhausted than I already am, which was no ideal while trying to look after a toddler, although luckily I've had a lot of support with looking after him

@Needaholidayplease thank you for your reply. I think I'm just going to do it , as I don't want to make myself feel even worse for the sake of 2 weeks work , when hopefully by January I'll be feeling much better.

With my 1st pregnancy I was fortunate enough to have hardly and sickness at all , so this has really hit me hard !

Ask yourself this, if a non-pregnant person woke up one day feeling like you do now would they go into work? I imagine the answer is a pretty emphatic NO. Why do you feel you should go onto work when you are not only feeling like absolute rubbish but you also have an extra responsibility to your unborn child to keep yourself as well as you possibly can?

It's madness the pressure applied to clearly very sick pregnant women to work because their condition is somehow 'self inflicted' or because other women breeze through pregnancy and never have to take a day off. Worse still are those who have relatively mild (but still not very nice) morning sickness who judge women with HG or severe sickness terribly because they were able to power through. It's the equivalent of someone with a cold telling someone with the flu that they are the same. Ostensibly the symptoms may look similar on paper but the reality of the two conditions is completely different.

Finally if you're still feeling guilty (which you absolutely shouldn't be) then ask yourself if you are able to perform your duties in a way at work that doesn't detriment your performance and adversely impact your pupils. I know when I had HG that I was beyond terrible at work because I simply couldn't focus on anything else other than feeling sick or being sick. I was weak and tired and basically incapable of working. You aren't doing your students any favours coming to work like that when they would probably be better off with a cover teacher until you start to feel better.

@Bumpitybumper thank you fod your reply

Its so hard not to feel guilty, even though there is nothing than I can do about it!!

It definitely feels like you're just expected to get on with it, even though like you say, if I were feeling like this and I wasn't pregnant, I would kot be going into work