cat’s out of the bag

March 3, 2010 at 7:54 pm (pregnancy after miscarriage, Pregnancy at Work) (pregnancy after miscarriage, telling people you're pregnant)

Now that we had gotten the OK from the doc to start telling people about our pregnancy, it was time to take that big, big step – telling my work. There have actually been a LOT of babies in my office in the past two years. Last year, there must have been 10 new babies, which is a ton considering we have a staff of about 150 people. I suppose we are all just sort of getting to that age, so I figured that the news would get a good reception.

Telling the boss that you’re pregnant can be a pretty intimidating thing. I wasn’t too worried about it, but I still wanted to make sure that I was well prepared. I decided that I would speak to my HR rep first, then to a co-worker in my department who recently came back from maternity leave so I could see what her experience was like, then tell my boss the following day. It turned out that my HR person was only available later in the day, and I definitely wanted to speak to my co-worker the same day so I would not have to delay telling my boss. So, I strongly suggested to her that we needed to go for lunch together so that I could talk to her alone.

As we were headed to pick up some food, we started talking about her baby, and how it was lots of work to have to go out anywhere now since they had to deal with packing up the stroller and having all of thier just-in-case supplies ready to go, and I thought that was a good lead in. When I told her I was pregnant, she started SCREAMING! Like full on screaming, to the point that I was actually a bit scared to keep driving! She was so excited for me and gave me a big hug. It was helpful to talk to her about how she told her boss at the time, and what sorts of questions they asked. Next up was talking to HR, which went quite smoothly – ie., no screaming – and she gave me the run down on what my benefits would be while I was off, and some advice on what I should talk to my boss about when I told him. She advised that I should let him know when my due date is, and how far in advance I was planning on going on leave. She also suggested I let him know if I was planning on coming back or if that was to be decided later on, and that he would likely also appreciate knowing if he should keep the news mum, or if it was now open knowledge.

The next day, I told my boss. I was emailing M to get his opinion on whether I should do the “pop-in” or schedule an appointment. We agreed that the pop in would be more appropriate as it’s more casual. He also changed my mind about leaving it until the end of the day and suggested that I do it mid-day- more confident/assertive instead of giving him the news and then taking off for the day. I had not really considered that an end of day meeting might leave that kind of impression, so I decided to go for the mid-day chat. It was nice to get M’s input on this since he is a manager and has had to deal with women letting him know that they are pregnant. Anyhow, the chat went extremely well. To my surprise, he told me that he had a feeling about a month and a half ago that I might be pregnant. And here I thought I was hiding it so well! He congratulated me and was very supportive. When I told him my plan was definitely to come back, he laughed and said he had little doubt about that 🙂

So – now the news is out there. I told more co-workers at the end of the day that day, and then this morning, I was sort of put on the spot to announce it to the larger management group in our morning meeting. A VP (who knew I was pregnant) announced that a co-worker had given birth to her baby girl, and then asked if there were “any other highlights” while looking at me. Everyone else in the room who already knew were also also staring at me expectantly so I had to say “Ok, Ok, I’m next!” Everyone cheered and congratulated me. Other than the embarrasment of being the center of attention (and thus turning beet red), it was a wonderful moment.

It’s sort of strange now that it’s completely out there after trying to hide it for so long. In a way, it’s exciting because everyone is so happy for us. It might even make it seem a bit more real since now it’s public knowledge. But in an odd sense, it’s scary. I know the chances of having another miscarriage is very low at this point, but anything can happen. When we went through our miscarriage, it was just us, we clung to each other for dear life, but no one else knew what we were going through. Now that we’ve made our announcements, it would be so terrible to have everyone know about it.

I have to keep telling myself that it should be OK now, that we are going to have our baby, but I think that fear will always be there. Right up until I’m holding baby in my arms…. And then I can worry for the next 18 years rest of my life!