Give Me excuses to take time off work

[curlyhairedd]

I've had 2 previous miscarriages and now 11 weeks pregnant for this first time. I'm constantly anxious and unable to enjoy my pregnancy for this reason

I NEED a good excuse to force my work to allow me to work from home

I previously used to work from home until we had a new manager that's just being difficult. My job can be done fully remotely and there's absolutely no reason for me to go into the office everyday but this is the expectation now.

I just need a good reason to give them to allow me to work from my bed for the next month or so?

Give me your best excuses

WFH is not the same as taking time off!

Yes i should have worded it differently "excuses to stop having to go INTO work"

Could you get a fit note from the gp? Along the lines of ok to work from home but not go into office.

Morning sickness
Chair at the office gives you backache
You need the toilet a lot & feel uncomfortable/ embarrassed at the office

Pregnancy symptoms? Nausea, so you need to be within reach of a loo meaning commuting is difficult?

Covid symptoms

What’s your GP like?

If you have a genuine MH problem, a fit note saying that WFHing would help doesn’t seem an unreasonable request if justified.

Don't lie !

Explain to them why you would prefer to work from home and that you are worried about your health and baby.

If you have been working from home and meeting or exceeding your goals show them this , prove your worth.

You will at some point get caught out by your lies

Are you sure you'd feel better working from home? I too had 2 mc then fell pregnant at the start of covid and had to work from home. It sent my anxiety through the roof as I would spend hours googling and obsessing over mc rates, symptoms etc. Honestly it had a massively negative impact on my mental health. Pregnant again now and find being at work so much better for my mc anxiety!

How is going into an office dangerous to your pregnancy? It's not like your saying your unfor for work, you just don't want to go in!

It would just put much more at ease if I am in bed not doing anything physically. I feel like if I do anything it will cause me to miscarry again - even driving worries me

Why can't you tell your employer the truth?
And if your manager still says no then ask for a meeting with HR and do the Fit Note thing?
I've had to fight my (very large) employer a few times over certain things and they said no at first and then I argued it and got them
to agree

I just feel like they wont take my excuse seriously, I've requested a few times to wfh and its been rejected and they know my history of mc and know I'm currently pregnant again

Have you spoken with your occupational health specialists? Or as a pp suggested, could you talk to your GP and get a recommendation to give weight to your request.

Wow, I can't think of a better excuse than the one you truthfully have. So sorry you're going through this worry, I can't imagine x
I think request a meeting, have a fit note ready and hit them with it. If they say no then go off with work related stress?

Agree with sweetnoodle but if you do want old
school excuses D&V is a good one (no one really wants to talk about it, ‘puking for volume and distance’ says it all and ‘shitting through a sieve’ is graphic enough for all. But really it
would be less stress to be straight with work.

You are 11 weeks so you could tell them you are pregnant and then say you have bad morning sickness. I had low bp at that stage I got signed off for - basically I fainted really easily. Back pain would be a good one too.

Personally I would suggest you're better off being fitter / active in pregnancy rather than lying in bed.
I used to swim masses in first pregnancy. Felt brilliant. Second was a m/c and I'm sure being unfit and overweight was a contributory factor. Felt awful.
Improved fitness and lost weight for 3rd.

@Jalisco I'm sorry PRETENDING to work? Do you know me or know what sort of role I'm in and if that's even a possibility for me to PRETEND? If you have nothing good to say then keep your mouth shut. You had a bad back and I have trauma from my previous miscarriages. How dare you try to compare and claim that your trauma is worse than someone else's! By the way, you can have a bad back and call in sick and other people in the world can be ill too. It doesn't take away from your illnesses :) it's not a competition.

Don't say you want o work from home because you're pregnant. Explain you need to work from home as you have strong prenatal anxiety and get a fit note accordingly.

I'd be going to my GP and getting a fit note with pregnancy related' generic message but ultimately is a mental health reason.

Think this is out of order.

You yourself said 'take time off' and later said 'stay in bed'.

It's not exactly a big jump that you'd be pretending to work.

And she is correct you would be lying by making up some crap just so you don't have to commute in. Either tell them honestly and see if they'll take pity on you or go in as normal.

I think you'd be better off accessing some support for your anxiety than avoiding moving around during pregnancy. It's understandable you feel anxious but I don't think staying in bed is a helpful answer to that.

I think you should go to the GP and discuss coping strategies for your anxiety. I get it, I really do, had a couple of MC before having DC.

You've got a long few weeks ahead of you so I think you'd be better off focusing your energy on how to proactively manage your anxiety. I think you know that going to the office and driving isn't rationally going to cause a MC. A couple of weeks of WFH isn't going to make the anxiety go away, it'll be back with a vengeance.

Please don't think I'm being aggro, I'm not. But for your mental health for the next months ahead, you need to find a more proactive coping strategy than swerving the office