First official (verbal) notification to bosses (I have 2) that am pregnant. No really awkward moments resulted, which was a good start. Reasonably, was asked what the plan was afterwards (they do need to plan what to do in my absence), but other than taking a year off, kept it vague – mostly because I have no definite idea myself and want to keep and open mind because I know most mothers have internal conflicts about working and being a mother of a small child. I’m not sure which way I will swing at the end of the first year, let alone the fact that C-chan will be in the middle of a “career change” around about late next year, and we don’t know what opportunities he will have for a hiatus from work, although he is keen to find one.
Boss #1 turned out to be cool, and when I said I’d prefer he doesn’t tell every/anyone yet, he said “No, it’s your job to let people know”. Offered to make an appointment with Personnel for me to discuss maternity leave situation. Even got an unexpected inoffensive pregnancy joke “Ah there’s nothing so relaxing than relaxin”, which was totally unexpected. [Relaxin is the hormone that increases in pregnancy and relaxes muscles in preparation for giving birth – possibly responsible for the pregnant woman waddle, not to mention other gastrointestinal and urethral malfunctions during pregnancy.] Yeah, I know it wasn’t that hilarious – must have been a joke he and his wife shared - but I prefer intellectual pregnancy jokes to crude ones any day!!
Boss #2 I had been slightly dreading telling, as he loves to tease and said once before he can’t stand babies. However, was pleasantly surprised that he ended up saying his daughter is pregnant also (a few weeks more advanced than me) and had a lot more sensible things to say before some light hearted ribbing… “you wait until they are teenagers!!”
Best responses:
Usually involve the words “Congratulations, how lovely!”, or amusing anecdotes about their/wives’ experiences in the 1st/2nd trimester.
Worst reponses (ranked with increasing tactlessness):
3) Oh! What will you do? Will you come back to work?
2) Oh! That’s great… I assume?
1) Oh?! Have you been trying long?
I don’t mind friends asking me these questions at all, but this is where work and personal life should be kept separate. The only person at work who I think has the right to reasonably ask me question #3 are my direct managers. The rest isn’t really relevant to anyone except people I want to share it with. Questions 1 & 2 have so much potential to be offensive and hurtful to people who have either not planned their pregnancy and find themselves in a difficult situation, or have been trying under difficult circumstances unsuccessfully or with painful miscarriages. C-chan’s Mum said people were always asking her questions just like this, and “so when are you going to have kids?”, and in her case, it had been a long and painful process trying to get pregnant.
Do people I work with really want to have details of my sex life and level of fertility? Why do people feel the need to ask this? Often people you don’t know are more interested in getting news that they can have ready to tell other people…
So all in all, people don’t think before they speak, but at least I haven’t had any form of sex discrimination or harassment from my first bout of news. So far, so good. Now if only someone would offer me a place to nap in the afternoon….
The most ignorant question has to be “do you know if you are having a girl or a boy?”. For the record, at 12 weeks, the answer is “NO. No frickin idea. You can only make out the head and limbs in the ultrasound. And, no, I don’t mind which gender the child turns out to be.”
Clothes situation:
Jeans are no longer comfortable. Most of my skirts are not fitting, or won’t before too long. Have found a few better tops and a skirt and some Thai fisherman pants that are cotton and tie up. That’s better!
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