Hiding pregnancy from nosey family

[Luthien28]

Hey all, just looking for a bit of advice.

I'm currently on holiday with my husband and his family and my mum is looking after our cat and house for the week.

This morning I got a text from her to say a letter from the hospital has come for me and asked what my appointment is for (12 week scan). I fibbed and said it was to check for issues with my periods etc. She then said she was secretly hoping I was pregnant so I played it off like she was getting ahead of herself etc and changed the topic.

My issue is that she works at the same hospital as my appointment and I have a feeling she is going to look up my appointment to see who it's with etc and I don't know how to navigate this situation.

None of our families know we are trying for a family and we don't want anyone to know until we get the go ahead at our 12 week scan due to a previous MC.

What would you do in this situation? 😫

If she looks up your appointment she would seriously get sacked as it's a breach of data protection. But obviously you'd have to report her for that breach. She will know this as she'll have had training on the fact that she cannot look at patient information without legitimate purpose.

There isn't anything you can do. If your mother has access to patient records, and access them to look up your appointment she can be sacked. It breaks confidentiality law and it's not tolerated. If you find out she's done this, the only thing you could do is get her sacked. Would you want to take it that far OP? Also, has she opened your post? If she has you need to have a convo with her about boundaries.

Has she opened your post?! How else would she know it was an appointment letter and not something else?

If she opened your letter, she knows what it's for because I'm pretty sure those letters are pretty clear? Why did she open your letter?

For me, the extreme secrecy seems weird and unnecessary nd I wouldn't be treating my family that way.

Having said that, fi you suspect your mother is opening your post and would actually break serious rules within her workplace simply to look up your hospital details, then you probably have much more signficant boundary issues than in "normal" families. In which case, I'd be keeping my distance and part of that would absolutely be not giving her a key to my house or asking her to do me major favours.

I wouldn't be happy, but I would speak with your DM when you get back and ask her to keep it quiet

Why on earth is your mother opening your post?

She probably didn't open it but it will be stamped by the hospital on the envelope. I had the same thing with my in-laws who pick my children up and go back to ours after school so saw the post that had been delivered but thankfully she didn't say anything but I did wonder if she was speculating. It's quite obvious from the letter that it's an appointment. Id just leave it OP and see what comes of it. It's hardly the words biggest secret, often people guess from not drinking or other behaviours. Hopefully by denying it she will get the message.

I think I'd have gone for a 'why are you opening my post Mum' with a simply face to take the sting out of it. She absolutely shouldn't open post

If her mum had opened her letter she would have known the appointment was for a 12 week scan and therefore wouldn’t have asked what the appointment was for

Who said she'd opened her post ? Hospitals have their own named envelopes, at least ours do. Stop jumping to conclusions

She wouldn’t look in your medical records at the hospital if she had any sense as she would be fired, it’s a confidentiality breach and it’s treated extremely seriously. I work at a hospital and I don’t know anyone who would do this, we aren’t allowed to look at anyones medical records without good reason to, it’s all logged all the patient records you have ever accessed too.

i wouldn’t worry, just don’t mention it again. It’s very nosey of her to ask what your appt is for, if she mentions it again just say “sorry I’d rather not discuss it it’s personal” and she shouldn’t push it any further.

Hope all goes well for the 12 week scan, I imagine you plan on telling her in the not so distant future anyway so she’ll find out soon enough but don’t let her push u into telling her before you are ready x