I am in my first trimester of pregnancy. I feel sick most of the time. Do you think it's ok to tell my manager about my condition so that I can wfh more often. Most of my colleagues inform their managers only in their 5th or 6th month. Will telling earlier affect your standing in the team? It's my first pregnancy and will appreciate if all you awesome mom's can share tips. Thanks !!
Congratulations first of all!! And yes do tell your manager, not for the manager but yourself, regardless of whether or not you think it will impact your career short term or have concerns about perception. Pregnancy is a crucial time for the baby’s health and that means taking good care of yourself (this is on your husband/partner as well). Healthy mother, healthy baby. Perspective and priorities I optimize for really changed with a full family. Personally, I feel it’s better to have zero regrets regarding kids than a half or two PSC ratings.
Totally agree. This is your first introduction to do what’s best for your baby (and that means you too at this stage). You’d be surprised that when you make something “ok” for yourself, it’s okay to others too.
Depend on how much you trust the manager. I told my manager at 2 months. as a result, i was put on grunt work and my review suffered. With my second pregnancy I am waiting until I am starting to show. Having say that I agree to put you and the baby first and let review suffer if it comes down to it.
This sounds unethical
If you trust your manager, the earlier the better. If not, start interviewing.
Interviewing wouldn’t be a good idea. It’s hard work to prep and go to interviews. After switching team you will also need to rebuild reputation and ramp up. Don’t interview unless things get really bad.
That's fair. Note I'm a guy, so I have a harder time empathizing here. My wife certainly had a hard time with emotions and such in her second and especially third trimester, so I guess ramping up would be difficult then. @QQmeh thanks for calling me out
Yes but I also didn’t get much raise that year and got assigned to very low profile project. It worked great for me though as my well being and my baby are the first priorities at that time.
I would tread carefully here. Especially if you don’t know your manager very well (or have a good gauge of how he perceives women and pregnancy in general). I was massively ill with 1st trimester morning sickness when I told my manager (who was new to the team, and extremely eager to make a name for himself). At the time: I was the only woman, a 3 year veteran - and the only team member en-route to have kids (everyone else was a DINK). This turned out to be a mistake. Just like many here - I became a grunt. Manager immediately loaded me up with all the work that “nobody else wanted to do” (he even assigned it to me while making that exact same statement). I believe he thought it likely I would quit after the kid (indeed he made several statements AFTER I delivered that were suggesting as much...and his wife was a SAHM which I believe might’ve influenced some of his thinking). Anyways, I think he was basically trying to get as much out of me as possible so the other team members could advance themselves (and him) - while I covered the “had to do” bases. When I turned out to be high-risk, he was okay about me taking time for dr’s appointments, but it’s not like he lightened the work load any (or reassigned any of those “undesirable tasks”). Frankly, I would’ve considered most of this annoying but tolerable....EXCEPT ..He had no problem with letting certain dudes on the team (i.e. his “friends”) bully me. When our PM snapped “Can’t you work while on bed rest?” in a public standup (Note: I had already discussed my leave privately with my manager) my manager did absolutely nothing. I should note that this PM was infamous for coming at me with inappropriate anti-women remarks- and he was 10x’s worse once I was pregnant. But PM was buds with my manager - so all of this harassment was permissible. No lie: Trying to keep my focus on my child and my health during this time period was pretty difficult in this work environment. Compound that with the fact that my manager was always saying one thing (“...I care about you taking care of yourself...”) and doing another (...”BUT, you need to do all these things by this ridiculous deadline...because nobody else *wants* to do them..”) - I eventually got really fed up of the entire situation. I’m really glad that my child and I survived a near death scenario. I’m also really glad this manager is no longer my manager. I wish I had known what his empathy and respect was worth (i.e. nothing) before I had confided in him - or put up such a struggle to keep doing good, fast work for him. It really wasn’t worth the effort IMO....not to mention the additional stress during that difficult time.
Really sorry to hear your story Muskie. Glad it turned out okay for you and your baby.
I am so sorry you had to go through that!
Zofran is your friend
Doesnt hurt to tell your manager and be up front. Every woman's pregnancy is different so don't compare yourself to others. Congratulations and good luck with your pregnancy
I told my manager during my 1st trimester. I needed flexible hours and I didn't want to keep going to doc appts without an explanation. My team was very understanding
I told my manager and business stakeholder at 13 weeks..i had a rough first trimester and although I had originally planned to tell later i changed my decision..am glad I did as they were very understanding and it helped enormously as it was a weight lifted off my shoulders