It’s a ‘how to tell’ one- advise appreciated!

[IMBCRound2]

Well actually it’s two… (sorry for the essay!)

im an independent mum by choice - it took multiple rounds of ivf for both my current pregnancy and my LO so I’m aware that pregnancy announcements can be incredibly hard and try to be as sensitive as possible in sharing the news.

I need to tell one of my oldest friends - she was very supportive during the dark period when I learned it was incredibly unlikely I’d ever conceive naturally - and even ivf would take more miracle than science . She’s been coming to terms with the fact that she’s unlikely to have children as she hasn’t met anyone and doesn’t want to do it solo. When I offered to support her with this (having spent many hours trying to come to terms with the fact I may never be able to have children) she said I couldn’t possibly know what it was like to be facing a childless future - leading to lots of heated words between the both of us. We’ve now patched things up but I’m worried about rocking the boat with the fact another miracle has somehow occurred. Any thoughts?

the other is my colleagues - my instinct is to put it in the company WhatsApp so people can process in their own time , with a note to say If baby talk is hard, please let me know so I can keep it to a minimum. However - a few other colleagues have taken the opposite approach, spoke about it non-stop until my CEO stepped in. I’m now over thinking and worried it’s going to come across as sanctimonious or make the other women feel guilty?

Firstly congratulations on your little babes! With your friend I’d probably just text her and say you are pregnant and appreciate it might be difficult for her, so you’ll take her lead with how much or how little she wants you to mention it.
With work - why do you need to announce it to the company? Can’t you just tell your managers and need to know people? That’s what I have done (IVF pregnancy after 7 years TTC). I would find it weird if someone announced their pregnancy so widely? Can you just put it in an email to your line manager or raise it at your regular catch ups?

I work in a very small tight-knit office so it’s going to be hard to hide the fact that I’m pregnant. When it was WFH I didn’t because people didn’t need to know and I could hide behind the screen - but with this one it’s going to be incredibly obvious. I’ve also been WFH for a little while (unrelated to the pregnancy) so it’ll definitely be a full on BoOm BUMP when I come back in.

One of my colleagues didn’t say anything and then suddenly was happily chatting about mat leave and it really caught me unaware - I think if I’d known I would have been a bit more ready about the fact baby chat might be a possibility ? Thankfully i was already pregnant at that point but i kept thinking that if it had been a month earlier when I was in full FET prep, I think I would have been shaken up ?

I don’t mean a full on ‘ hoooooooray I am blessed with blossoming woooooomb!’ more a ‘ fyi , I’m currently pregnant - if you need some space from baby talk, feel free to pm me’ … I’m pretty conscious about not making a big deal of it but I’m aware that gets harder as it goes on and you’re tempted to groan a bit as you get out of your chair!

I'd message your friend as you have set out, "btw I'm pregnant, happy to take your lead etc"

I only told my boss at work, but people figured out I was pregnant so let the announcement happen organically. If someone asked if I was pregnant I said yes. Then let them lead with baby conversations.

Announcing it to the whole company with a caveat would come across as sanctimonious to me. If you let it happen organically you soon figure out who is happy to chat about pregnancy/baby Vs those who don't.

Id much prefer to do it that way but im just worried that organically will
mean -

1. surprising people inadvertently (as happened to me)
2. the people who are happy will be full on ‘ oh when are you due? Your daughter must be so excited.’ And I thought an online message might get that all out of the way in a space people can choose to mute?

and tbh - I ended up replying a lot to the full on MY WOMB IS BLESSED chat because I’m a masochistic idiot and I didn’t know how to say it was actually killing me when I knew I’d be going home to stick another round of needles in myself

however You announce to your colleagues, definitely don’t say the part about PM you if they don’t want baby chat, that’s really inappropriate and puts the onus on them. Just say you’ll be going in maternity leave in xx date, and then don’t talk about it unless someone asks you a question or brings it up. I’m expecting now and I would never bring it up myself. I had a miscarriage last year and there’s no way I would have wanted to message someone telling them that, so they’d stop talking to me about their pregnancy

Sorry to hear about your miscarriage.

i definitely wouldn’t have phased it as bluntly as that - more an infertility dog whistle…

I’m just really worried someone is going to be sat there feeling as awful as I did… for me it would have been easier to say something quietly than in a room full of people. Having the conversations on WhatsApp meant I could mute the whole thing.

The thing is my pregnant colleague asked me what it was like when I was pregnant and I told her no one knew because I didn’t want to make anyone sad inadvertently and was completely honest about all the ivf/ and she just completely blew me off. I don’t know if she did it to other people so it could be even more of a sensitive situation than I’m aware of? (I feel if my ceo said something it can’t have just been me?)

im actually dreading going in because I’m just so worried I’m going to make someone sad.

Well my manager just accidentally said something about speaking to my midwife soooo I guess there’s that problem solved! 🤦‍♀️