When did you tell work you're pregnant?

[BellaRosex]

I work in corporate and curious when people disclosed to their bosses that they were expecting.

What are the pros/cons to telling early vs waiting?

Tia x

Wait till after your 12 week scan. TBH we didn't tell anyone prior to that.

I told my manager and a couple of others because I was doing some tasks that weren't advised while pregnant - think lots of hours standing and carrying heavy equipment. But I didn't make it 'public' at work til much later.

I'm hoping to wait until 25 weeks (which is the legal minimum), though I'm 18 weeks now and it's a bit harder to hide so not certain I'll last. My reasons though are:

1. I don't want them to look at me differently or think I'm less committed and

1. After previous losses, I don't feel I can take anything for granted.

There would be factors in favour of telling yours sooner if you wanted though, including:

1. Being entitled to time off for appointments;

1. More support and understanding around things like morning sickness; and

1. They need to carry out a risk assessment to make sure your role is safe (not an issue for me as I'm just at a desk all day).

X

I told my direct manager early on because I was so sick and tired, I was napping in the day! And I worked a lot with different timezones and I just couldn’t do the 8pm meetings or 6am starts.

the rest, well. It was all a bit as and when because I got put on redundancy watch the week after my 12 week scan!

I know that you are able to take time off for appointments and anything related to the pregnancy with pay and without using holiday etc so I assume they need to know before the first time you do that.

With #1 I threw up on my COOs shoes at 6 weeks so they knew from then.
With #2 I started bleeding at 6 weeks so had a week of bed rest and advised my partner.

7 and a half weeks but only because I threw up during a one to one with my manager as I had awful morning sickness.

Due to Multiple pregnancy losses I told them at about 6weeks each time as it’s important they understand why I’m not myself in work / multitude of hospital appointments / sick leave marked under pregnancy etc. I think its personal depending on you work and how complex things are for you.

I told my line manager at work pretty much as soon as I found out, both times, so around 7 weeks-ish. I have a really good relationship with my manager and I’ve worked for the company for a long time so I felt comfortable telling my manager and disclosing it to my team after my 12 week scans. For me it was so that they had time to map out a suitable plan for my maternity leave and recruit an interim hire, and also so that I could be transparent with them on how I was feeling and if I wasn’t feeling great rather than having to hide it. I was confident that they’d take the news well and offer me support, which they did and I was immensely grateful and glad I’d told them early and got it out the way!

I told my direct manager as soon as I found out as I had severe morning sickness and had to keep running to the loo all the time.

Tell them anytime between 4 and 25 weeks, whenever best suits you.
Factors to consider:

• once you've told them, you get time off for appointments
• risk assessment can't be done until they know, which may/not matter depending on your job
• giving them more time will allow them more time to recruit for mat cover and get the best candidate, which will hopefully mean you don't return to a total mess left by an inept cover person
• if you have extreme morning sickness you may need to tell them depending on what your GP writes on your sick note
• think about who you want to know if you lose the baby. You will then have to tell them about a loss, which may be a good or bad thing for you depending.

I had to tell as soon as found out due to being a lab user.
I had hyperemesis and usually by 6 weeks I was needing time off and adjustments. I had two loses too and it was helpful that they already knew.
I told a couple of colleagues too either because I had to ask them to do things for me that weren't safe in pregnancy or if they were relying on me to complete work whilst I was struggling to work at all. I made the decision I'd rather they knew it was pregnancy related than thought I was avoiding work. I ended up signed off for a month in one of the pregnancies