Help I resigned… then found out I’m pregnant. What now?

[MidlifePlotTwist]

Sorry for the long post but I’d really appreciate some outside perspective because my head is scrambled.

I’m in a senior leadership role in a large company. The job is high pressure due to ongoing multiple changes and has been taking a toll for a while, so a few weeks ago I resigned. I gave a 3 month notice period and planned to move abroad and set up my own small consultancy once I left.

My chief was upset when I resigned and immediately tried to walk it back, offering different options to keep me. At the time I was going on annual leave for two weeks (back tomorrow) and so I said I would reflect over that period but I genuinely felt done with corporate life and so I didn’t see me changing my mind.

Fast forward to this week and I’ve just found out I’m pregnant with my third (7 weeks). It was not planned, I’m 40, and I’m the only earner (hubby a stay at home dad). My last working day is supposed to be March, baby due July.

We’re fortunate to have a financial safety net behind us so we could cope with no income for a while but our savings would take a significant dent.

Now I’m torn.

On one hand, part of me thinks I should tell my chief now about my pregnancy so I can extend my resignation end date slightly to end of June, keep things stable, have a few more months of income (and bonus) and then step away before the baby comes. It gives them a longer runway to recruit my replacement and have a decent handover.

On the other, it feels messy to reveal a pregnancy after resigning, and I don’t want to look like I’m trying to reverse anything or use it for leverage. I also don’t want to burn bridges because I may still consult for them.

Other option is that I walk back my resignation, don’t tell them I’m pregnant, announce it later and then take paid maternity leave. Legally I know I can do this, but it doesn’t sit comfortably with me and I want to be super transparent with them.

Has anyone navigated something similar?

Would you tell your employer now?

Does extending a notice period sound reasonable in this situation?

Any advice or reality checks welcome. I feel like every option has trade-offs and I don’t want to make the wrong call.

Your misogyny is hanging out...

No it's not - it's an incentive to lure talent to the business. I joined my employer in part because of it and they sold it hard in recruitment phase.

If it was a rentention tool... employment contracts would offer enhanced mat leave contingent on continuous service of X upon return (i.e. if you leave, you repay it).

And if it is a retention tool why do I see so many women at my company and in the world at large being actively managed out of their jobs after returning from mat leave in good faith?

Riddle me that?
I am baffled by how much women hate other women sometimes...

Apologies @MidlifePlotTwist for the derail..
Again.

She wouldn’t be screwing anybody by taking them up on their offer to remain, putting in an additional 7 months of work and then taking her statutory leave. nor is she being dishonest - she has no obligation (moral or legal) to disclose her pregnancy.

It dilutes and devalues the concept of “misogyny” to trot it out any time you disagree with someone else’s opinion.

It’s not misogynistic to suggest that taking advantage of an employer is dishonest.

This exactly 👌.

Congratulations on pregnancy OP 🎈 ☺️

Walk back the resignation and don't feel sorry for doing this.

Big corporations milk employees all the livelong day regularly forcing leadership to do massive amounts of unpaid overtime just to keep their job.

I live in a country where there is no such thing as enhanced maternity pay. There is only few months of standard maternity pay from the government and nothing more. I've never heard of a company offering more than maybe one month of extra leave. Women go back to work much earlier than in the UK. Guess what? there is just as much gender pay disparity, misogyny, pregnancy discrimination, glass ceiling etc... as in the UK.

My personal opinion is that gender issues concerning parenthood can only be tackled when men are entitled to several months of paternity leave (and take advantage of them). When hiring a man of childbearing age is as much of a risk as hiring a woman of childbearing age, then thing might start to change. My opinion is that feminists should fight to increase men's entitlement of parental leave.

I can’t see how you’ve had a successful career if you insult people that disagree with you.

Misogyny? Me asking people to stop harming the careers of women because of the hell I've had trying to build my career is misogyny is it? What does that make you when you are attacking me as a female for asking people to respect the harm these things cause to other females! Christ do you even know the meaning of misogyny? And why are you making up all these melodramatic scenarios that are irrelevant! You sound like you sound uons

You seem obsessed with calling women on here misogynists for trying to protect female equality! That's pretty thick don't you think? Do you actually know what misogyny is! It's certainly not women asking other women to protect the careers of other women! Your rants are highly nasty and uncalled for, you are behaving like I'm some bloke with prejudices against women when I'm asking you to protect women from being predjudiced against!

The OP has said she doesn't want to lie and fuck her relationship over with the company, she doesn't want to burn bridges! You breeding in quick succession and getting all your maternity pay isn't relevant, the OP resigned, she has far better integrity than most of you on here!

You need to see things from the other side, my partner and I never wanted kids but that's never stopped me being penalised by hiring managers! See it from tie point of view from women who don't even want to breed but can't get job opportunities in case they do because women take advantage of the maternity pay and want to less hours after the leave is over. Sit back and don't be a misogynist, actually think!

X1000

He really valued my approach, said he would be delighted to extend my notice period and nothing that I have communicated to him has changed his opinion of me as a leader.

He said he valued my leadership, my transparency and he is still thinking of my long term future with the company.

So absolutely if I want to return in the future to corporate leadership, the door is wide open to me, and in a more senior capacity than when I leave.

And of course… he extended his congratulations!

I’ve read all the comments on here and it is really sad to hear of the discrimination that other women have faced. I can only speak from my experience. The biggest advocates in my career have been male, and on my previous two pregnancy announcements I was actually promoted after I announced I was pregnant.

So decent, honest corporations do exist and that’s why I was so eager to be honest with them on my new pregnancy dynamic.

So you haven't even "bred" and you still got allegedly discriminated against for being female, and yet you think the issue is women claiming their legal and/or contractual benefits?

You seem to have a lot of anger towards other women. We arent the problem here.

Ah great news op. He is a rarity!!!

I haven't gone back through your posts to check dates etc but im pretty sure youd still qualify for statutory maternity pay from your employer too if you left before baby is born 😊

I would say you are uniquely lucky OP.
It's not so much that decent corporations exist rather that your boss values you.
You could just as easily have a boss who doesn't get along with you in the same corporation and have a polar opposite experience. I've seen both scenarios in the same multinational. I had a colleague once, very senior in HR, who was highly regarded by the most senior management in the USA until she wasn't. This coincided with her having a child in her early forties who unfortunately was disabled and this meant she wasn't able to do as much unpaid overtime as previously. She found herself unceremoniously turfed out in the following redundancy round. In another multinational I worked in the mantra from the CEO on down was that "no-one is indispensable".

News alert - women get pregnant and men don't and never have to deal with discrimination in the workplace based on this reality.
In other news: without children society would collapse.

Staying with a company she has been with a long time to avail of maternity leave is not scamming - it's the most pragmatic decision she could make, especially given her husband is not working. You're the one who sounds like you're living in cloud cuckoo land.

I worked in Germany after the re-unification, one consequence of which was a doubling of unemployment in the former East Germany with middle-aged women impacted more than others, for some strange reason...
As a result, there was a surge in middle-aged women getting sterilized and bringing their sterilization certificate with them to interviews to try and convince companies to hire them.

Only someone in a very privileged position can hold your luxury views.
You're victim-blaming and it stinks to the high heavens.

Also, at my own interview in the former West Germany I was asked by none other than the HR Manager herself if I was pregnant... I had never heard the German word "schwanger" up until that point so she kindly acted it out for me by using her two hands to form a bump... Luckily for me I wasn't so I got hired.

@JoClogs former west germany- so that is over 30 years ago!
There are still idiots around, but many companies are great (just stay away from the charity and the education. sector in my experience).
We’ve also just promoted someone who is pregnant. She’s great, so she got the promotion.

In my admittedly long experience, most people move up based on their network at work not just their personal skillset. Many many people can do the same job but cliques look after their own.

Some women get high profile promotions while pregnant, most do not, that's the reality. Only six years ago I personally hired a pregnant woman from another dept in the same company because she was the best candidate for the job. My male Director tore me to pieces in the office for hiring her. "WTF were you thinking?" were his words and the whole office could hear as the walls were plasterboard. So no, times have not changed - there is a thin veneer in place, that is all and HR work for the employer not the employees. They are known as the soft Stasi and the best piece of advice I ever got from another male boss in another company was to keep them at arms length.

It’s really interesting as some of the comments have assumed I’ve worked for this organisation for years. I haven’t - it’s barely been 12 months.

So the level of empathy, support and confidence in me that they’ve shown having only been there for 12 months is testament in itself (though I’ve knocked performance out of the park whilst I’ve been there ☺️).

I’m also in a really good financial position. I have six figures in savings so me not taking full maternity pay isn’t going to mean we’re ending up in financial ruin. I also can roll out the hubby for work if needed. I know there are not many who have the same safety net.

I absolutely respect a woman is under no obligation to disclose pregnancy information, but in my particular situation - given the context above, given I wanted to keep a relationship with my company (consulting or future FTE) and given it was my decision to resign in the first place.. then what was comfortable for me was to be honest, give them a win win in terms of extended notice period and walk out with all my relationships intact.

When you blame the victims rather than the misogynists you are complicit in the misogyny.