When to tell colleages about pregnancy?

[trrk]

When did you tell colleages about pregnancy and were you happy with your choice?

I'm currently 13w was planning to tell people after my NHS scan and and low risk NIPT results came back. However now that I've just passed those milestones I still can't bring myself to tell people and haven't been able to totally shake the anxiety about something going wrong (first pregnancy at 41 after a long time of TTC and failed IVF).

There are a few colleages that I'm friendly with but most of them I barely know on a personal level as they started during the pandemic period and I have been mostly WFH recently. I tend to be a private person and wouldn't be comfortable telling people I barely know about a late-term loss if something did go wrong between now and the 20w scan.

I just can't decide whether to go ahead and tell now or wait until I can't hide it anymore and people guess anyway (already put some weight on but doesn't look like a bump yet to me). I don't imagine I could get to the 20w scan without it being obvious as I will be going into the workplace more frequently soon.

Already told my boss as I couldn't do some aspects of my job anymore for safety reasons so thats not an issue.

Why do you need to tell them anything? None of their business.

I would tell people after 24w in your shoes.

A colleague of ours didn't tell anyone apart from her line managers (at 32w) and was able to do so right until the end because of WFH. The news still got out, and it made things awkward when you were talking to her because although we all knew she would be off on ML imminently we couldn't actually reference her departure as officially we weren't supposed to know. I won't lie, people thought it was odd and in the end she admitted that she left it too long (in her view) and then felt too embarrassed to announce it more widely.

Congratulations though- I've had a MMC, a chemical and an ectopic in the last year and stories like yours' give me hope.

I didn't tell work until after the 20 week scan. However, I'm a teacher and was on Christmas holiday from 17-20 weeks, so it was easy to avoid; not sure I'd have evaded detection if I'd been in work as I 'popped' about three days after the end of term!

I told my boss at 24 weeks because that’s the latest I could according to my contract….and I was having twins so it was getting hard to hide.

I think based on what you’ve said I would wait until after the 20w scan. This is your news so share it when you are ready.

I told my manager early due to the safety aspect then confidently told people after 20 weeks- by 22 weeks it was hard to miss anyway. Didn’t do a big announcement, told a few people and let it flow in convo

I'm feeling awkward about this right now! I'm 23 weeks and so far have told my manager and my only direct teammate. But we are only around 20pax in the whole company, so I feel like I should tell other people too. My problem is similar to yours, due to remote working there are some colleagues I've never met and rarely interact with who would not care less that I'm pregnant. But is it rude to not tell them if I tell other people directly? I might just ask my direct teammate to drop it into convo (she goes to the office more than me) and hope that word gets out.

Feels like I'm making a mountain out of a molehill but I feel so unexpectedly awkward about it all!

I worried about this but actually found people cared a lot less than I thought they might 😂 if you don't want to make a big announcement then just casually drop it into conversation, or ask your boss to send an email round. You will never mitigate all risk but it is weird if people leave it as late as pp example!

I started telling people at 14 weeks. I didn't do a big announcement - just dropped it in as I felt like it. I got round most people by 16/17 weeks, and others found out second hand.

I hate people being in my personal business so I did it in the context of 'just warning you i'm pregnant and will be going on maternity in May', then swiftly moved on.