Scared about being judged

[Flame01]

Hi all, I’m newly pregnant only 8 weeks and I’m scared about telling people at work that I’m pregnant. I am waiting for the 12 week scan to be sure but if all is ok I am dreading when I have to let them know. I feel like the team I work in are going to judge me as we are all young and I will be the first one to have a baby in the team. I don’t know why I’m feeling like this but it is constantly on my mind.

[raverg]

I don’t work in that sort of wider team context anymore, but I totally get you and I would have felt the same at my old job.

I suppose it’s partly because you all work as a team there pulling towards one goal, and you may feel like you’re letting them down now that they may need to cover for you, this job won’t be your no. 1 priority anymore, and the company will have to get a replacement so you’re breaking the team? If they’re young, there will also be a lot of attention on you and lots of questions and potentially comments that, while well-meaning, they just come out from a point of view lacking experience and understanding of what it’s like to have kids or go through pregnancy. I know I would like to put my foot in my mouth for some of my previous comments from when I was younger, where I was literally just trying to show interest and make conversation but I know I got some frowned looks at the time lol

Ultimately you can’t control how they’ll react and trying to anticipate their reaction is a waste of time and energy. Better would be to focus on why you decided to get pregnant in the first place, what makes you excited about it and visualise what you’re working towards, be content and confident with your decision, and they’ll just need to deal with it. This is just a place of work, remember you’re all colleagues and not friends, no one cares what they think and you are within your rights to have a kid and go on maternity, whether they like it or not. And no one else would hesitate to go off and have a baby if that’s what they wanted to do, so don’t put too much pressure on yourself because you’re the first one to do it. Could have been anyone in that group, someone had to be first.

Hopefully this helps, that’s what I would have told myself, but it will get easier once the day comes, you pull off the band aid and it’s done. And it may go better than you expected too, who knows. Best of luck!

[Flame01 in reply to raverg]

Thank you, this is really helpful!

[Systema23]

obviously you need to tell your manager but why do you need to tell anyone else?

Because I had previously miscarried and due to my age I feared the worse during my pregnancy and diff do my tell my team till I was almost 6 months 🤣

I figured they would notice eventually. Funny thing is I was talking to one if the visiting personnel a few months after I gave birth and they didn’t even notice I was pregnant last time they were in my suite. That was despite being 34 weeks pregnant with preeclampsia lady tone I saw them and walking about the office in flip flops as they were the only thing that remotely gutted me 🤣