Pregnant while on mat leave- apparently I "have some nerve"

[thiskittenbarks]

Coming to end of my year of Mat leave and will be going back 3 days p/w. Have recently found out I am pregnant again. Wonderful news and couldn't be happier. Brought baby to see my parents this weekend and told them we are (fingers crossed) expecting no2. They are pleased but when discussing going back to work etc my mum dropped in that I "have some nerve" do go back from mat leave pregnant. Is it really that bad? Surely lots of people do it? I want to be prepared for telling work as I'm now not sure if I am telling them something terrible and shocking. My boss was actually pretty unpleasant to me while I was pregnant (just rude comments and questioning the regularity of antenatal appts etc) so I am fully prepared for that again - but I would like to know if I'm actually being crazy or unreasonable.
My mum was then questioning me about what work can do and whether they have to give me mat leave for this baby or if they can get out of it on account me be just being on mat leave. She's in her 70s and I know things were unfortunately different for her generation. But she's made me doubt whether I will even get mat leave, which I know is stupid.

[Anatidae]

Employers should be able to plan for and staff maternity leave appropriately. When I have someone notify me they are going to be on leave I arrange for resources to fill the gap (highly specialised and skilled industry.)

Employers dumping a woman's workload on her colleagues is the fault of poor management NOT the woman on maternity leave

[rebelnotaslave]

Wow this is eye opening. Shame n do t have to worry about being immoral having two children close together.

@Babbitywabbit I work for a teaching union (and used to be a teacher) and actually a teacher a her can put the first day of the school holidays as their return to work, they can out any day of the year. I 'lost' money as my dd was born in August, meaning I had to start my maternity leave even though it was the holidays.

Teachers aren't paid for the holidays, only the 195 days of the year, split over 12 months. The school teachers pay and conditions states that any teacher employed for a whole term MUST be paid until the end of that term- 31st August. This is because they have already worked that time. You aren't paying double as a school. And if they were only paying until July what then that was not legal according to school teachers contract.

Teachers do so much for the good of pupils, including neglecting the needs of their own (one reason I left). School budgets should not decide their family choices.

[Aderyn17]

Anatidae, I think it is hard to plan for mat leave properly, if you have someone taking two in close succession. Esp if you have a business where it takes so long to train staff properly that they are not really an asset to your business while they train.
It's not so much employers dumping work on colleagues, so much as the temp not always being able to do the job as well as the person they are covering for so the experienced staff have to do it or lose clients. Obviously this doesn't apply to all jobs - in yours it is possible to recruit skilled temps. That's great but it isn't true of everywhere. Which is why there isn't a universal right or wrong answer to this.

[dementedma]

I think applying for a job knowing you are pregnant and not disclosing it, is wrong. You are deliberately misleading the employer as to your ability to do the job for several months (because you won't be there).

[Anatidae]

We don't use temps - we make sure that we have a pool of people being trained constantly and that our workforce are flexible. We use temporary assignments within the company for example 'acting up' - it's a great way for someone to show they can do the job at that level.
My dh got his big break by covering for his boss on her maternity leave.

Done properly it benefits the business AND the employer pool. You can trial people in higher roles or sideways roles. I just don't accept that employers can't do this. I've also worked in companies where you get dumped on and it's always poor management - expecting people to take on the extra with nothing back.

This is a skilled role (scientific, requires PHD and serious business knowledge as well. It's not something we could get temps in for.)

[Aderyn17]

That does sound great. How does it work for small businesses though, where you may have people who are responsible for specific geographical areas and who know their clients inside and out? Where there isn't a lot of spare money to employ extra staff.

[Anatidae]

You just have to work around it - part of any business model is a combination of flexibility and redundancy in process. You shouldn't be using a system where the loss of any one staff member is going to be business critical. Any member of staff could leave, die, get critically sick or be pregnant at any point.

[susannahmoodie]

Damn right rebel re teaching. In other jobs you would accrue holidays whilst on mat leave, so this is just the teaching equivalent seeing as there is no flexibility re when your holidays actually are.

[BikeRunSki]

My organisation does what Anatidae describes. But we are huge, and publically funded, so we have a big pool of people to train up, and the skills will be kept in house. It also means we do not worry too much about the cost. DH is a director of a medium size consultancy in the same field, and horrified at this model.

[Oldie2017]

On small businesses we had it with our first nanny who stayed 10 years (a daily nanny) not least because we accommodated her babies. She came single. She married. She brought baby 1 to work, then baby 2 and left when baby 3 was due. It is very disrupting for your own babies who are bonded to that person. It was not too bad as we could recruit a temp and also she did minimise her leave - I think she took 6 weeks ( 3x the leave I took by the way) or something like that and then came back with the babies.

It is so hard to generalise about these issues as for a 3 woman business to lose 1 can almost kill the business off. For a large company it is fine.

[dobbyclub]

Aderyn
Obviously there are unplanned pregnancies and everyone just has to deal with it, but for people who plan dc, it is not wrong to point out that an employer has valid reasons not to be thrilled about 2 mat leaves one immediately after the other

So - the employer should find out if the baby was planned first before making a judgment? Can't see anything wrong with that

We are designed biologically to have babies, but we have also designed methods that enable us to choose when.

This made me laugh out loud. There are hundreds if not thousands of women on this site alone who would give their right arm to be able to "choose when" they have babies.

Actually applying for a job when you're already pregnant is a different matter. It's common for empoyers offering any kind of enhanced mat pay to require a certain amount of service before you're eligible (e.g. 1 year).

[Aderyn17]

Dobby, you are extrapolating meaning from my words which isn't there. I meant (if it wasn't clear) that if you get pg accidentally a second time, soon after the first, then everyone just has to get on with things. But where there is a choice and you are talking about planned pregnancies, I do think it is a piss take to do two in two years.

Most of us can and do choose to control our fertility. Some people struggle to conceive but thankfully that is not the majority.

[dobbyclub]

Aderyn - but you are saying there are certain circumstances where someone is 'taking the piss' or not? But those circumstances are unlikely to be known by anyone other than the woman involved? So perhaps the emploer should reserve judgment?

"Controlling your fertility" is a very vague term and fairly meaningless. As has been posted on this thread, people who take years to conceive may then conceive #2 immediately - this is still very much a planned pregnancy, but the idea that "the majority" are able to time conception to the month (or even to the 2-month, 3-month- 4-month period) is just factually incorrect. Every month, the odds are against you.

To put it another way, if I'd been subject to some of the negative employer attitudes that others have seen, I may then choose to 'leave it til the last minute' to try and conceive #2. I may then find it was too late, or in that past year my/OH's fertility had declined so it was a struggle. I would then be really quite annoyed that employers had made me fear conceiving quickly to the point where I may not be able to at all.
Do you now see how these attitudes can shape a person's family?

I am not trying to be argumentative for the sake of it, it's just you seem to have a clear-cut idea of who does/doesn't deserve their mat rights, when the real world simply is not like that in many, many cases.

And out of interest, what are the statistics for those that 'struggle to conceive'? Are you talking about within any given month, or at all?

[Aderyn17]

Dobby, firstly I'm not saying that some people don't deserve mat rights. I am saying that it is considerate to not take 2 or more straight after each other. Unless you work for a business that can absorb the impact easily. I do think it is taking the piss to have a job and then not be there for the best part of two years on the trot. Sorry, I just do.


While no one can time conception to the minute, fact is if you have unprotected sex there is a good chance you'll get pg, if not immediately then pretty soon. Many people do get pg as soon as they start trying. Iirc doctors start to be concerned after a year if you are actively trying but don't conceive, so I presumably most people get pg within that year. Personally, if I'd just had a baby and a year of mat leave, I'd not be risking a second pg immediately because I would not feel right returning to work pg and expecting another year of leave when I'd just come back.

Now there are some people who have had problems, think they won't conceive and then do. And people under time pressure to get pg again, due to age or illness. And not all empolyment circumstances are the same. Which is why I've said repeatedly that there is no hard and fast rule here.

Either way though, the employer is unlikely to be thrilled and whatever the personal circumstances of the employee, you can't expect them to be. Their priority is having their employees in place to do their job.

[Justanotherusername99]

I agree with Dobby and a few others. Fertility is a massive factor in these things. 1 in 7 couples have fertility issues and 1 in 4 pregnancies end in miscarriage.

We went through hell conceiving DC1. When I eventually fell pregnant, work were awful to me (to the point where both mine and my baby's health were put at risk). Unbelievably I fell pregnant with DC2 whilst on mat leave. If this hadn't happened and I'd gone back on contraception for a year or two, there is a very real possibilty we would have never had the opportunity to have a second. As things stood, I didn't care less what my employer thought as I had lost all trust and respect for them (I actually ended up leaving and successfully bringing an employment claim). If my employer had been semi decent, I would have felt A LOT of guilt and wouldn't have taken a full year of maternity...BUT I would still have preferred to have that period of them being pissed off with me than never having a second child and going through the hell of secondary infertility.

[lemonnade]

Wow

Mumsnet

'For parents'

The place where people think you should control your fertility to suit your employer and feel ashamed and guilty for having two kids close together.

Ok.

Fuck that

[thefraggleontherock]

I did this last year, I went back to work 8 weeks pregnant with my 3rd baby. It meant I have had 3 periods of maternity leave in 5 years.

I'm sure behind my back they were less than thrilled but they treated me very fairly and no one has said anything negative.

At the end of the day I work really hard to do my job while I'm there and I worked really hard for 8 years prior to having children. I decided to have a family and for the time being that's my priority, it is what it is.

Congratulations on your pregnancy and try not to let your worries overshadow this lovely news, it will work out fine

[dobbyclub]

While no one can time conception to the minute, fact is if you have unprotected sex there is a good chance you'll get pg, if not immediately then pretty soon.
Nope - it's about a 10 to 20% chance each month depending on age, and assuming none of the common fertility issues. So on average about 5-10 rolls of the dice and therefore people could reasonably assume that it's quite unlikely to happen within the average mat leave if you leave it a few months(!) after birth before trying.

[FuzzyOwl]

While no one can time conception to the minute, fact is if you have unprotected sex there is a good chance you'll get pg, if not immediately then pretty soon.

Nope - it's about a 10 to 20% chance each month depending on age, and assuming none of the common fertility issues. So on average about 5-10 rolls of the dice and therefore people could reasonably assume that it's quite unlikely to happen within the average mat leave if you leave it a few months(!) after birth before trying.

And then on top of that you have the high risk of miscarriage which increases as you get older.

[oldlaundbooth]

Agree totally re fuck off with your morals.

It's dog eat dog and you have to put yourself first.

Because no one one else will.

[lollipop7]

Your mother saying this off the cuff is one thing, but even if a company thinks the same they can't say it. Just tell them.

You've done nothing illegal. Tough tits really if they're not "happy" since who gives a fuck about an employer's feelings when they generally chew you up and spit you out anyway.

Don't resign. Stand your ground. You have a contract of employment and are protected to a great degree by the Law. Some propels on here clearly don't like that. If they want to be unprofessional and breach the Law then it will cost them in terms of money and skill and reputation (which isn't great anyway by the sound of it)

Oh and Congratulations by the way 😊

[Aderyn17]

If you have sex without contraception (assuming no fertility issues) then you are just as likely to get pg the first month as the 10th month. Ridiculous to assume that it will take a while - it may or may not. As I said, doctors start to be concerned after a year so I guess my definition of getting pg pretty soon, differs from yours.
I got pg the first month I tried - it happens! Most people don't have fertility issues and most don't have miscarriages. If you've had problems then it is natural I guess to go into each try more aware that it could go wrong, but that isn't the experience of the majority.

In the end everyone has a right to do as they please wrt having children. I'm just saying that it does have an impact on colleagues/employers, so they are within their rights not to be thrilled.

[lollipop7]

@Aderyn17 actually they have zero "rights" to be thrilled or otherwise when it comes to a Colleague's pregnancies.

[Bombardier25966]

We don't use temps - we make sure that we have a pool of people being trained constantly and that our workforce are flexible. We use temporary assignments within the company for example 'acting up' - it's a great way for someone to show they can do the job at that level.

Who does the job of the person acting up?

Either you're overstaffed, and people are working below capacity when fully staffed (inefficient), or others are taking on the workload of the person on maternity (which is what you've criticised others for).

[MistyMinge]

Some of the attitudes on here are depressing. Let's all just stay at home chained to the kitchen sink. No employer's to piss off then.

In my old workplace nobody had a baby for years and years, then several of us had babies quite close together. The industry I'm in is heavily regulated and to get someone to a certain level takes a while so they couldn't find cover easily. They were pissed off and the staff and clients were aware of it. Wasn't a nice feeling.

As I say 'life happens to people' as an employer you have to accept it. We could have (god forbid ) been off work due to cancer or similar.