Questions & Answers

Just a quick update - told my boss and he's absolutely fine! Knows I plan to go back etc and all is good! Got myself panicking for nothing lol!

Thanks a lot for the info and advice ladies. I'm gonna tell him tomorrow, but think I'll go with the short and sweet approach! Like you said, women have babies all the time! I think he'll be worried that I'll be leaving, but I'll just answer his questions before he asks them, hopefully reassuring him at the same time that I have every intention of returning to work.

Thanks again! X

As far as what to say, keep it simple and act as though it's not a big deal. (Women have babies all the time, this is pretty normal.) I dropped the news at the end of our weekly meeting as I'm walking out. Something like, "By the way, I should tell you I'm pregnant. The due date is March 19th, I'll probably take off 2-3 weeks before that and I'll stop traveling a month out." Short, simple, gives him the needed info and all he has to say in return is congratulations.

I also didn't tell him until I felt like I needed to because I was starting to show, around 13 weeks. I think I waited longer to tell him for my first, but I was hired into the department at 10 weeks pregnant (and didn't disclose at my interview, not that I was required to). So I told him at 18 weeks that go round. (I also didn't show until then, I'm much bigger with my second.)

I'd have a plan in your mind of how you want things to go before you go talk to the boss.

At least anticipate him asking some questions: When are you going on maternity leave? How long? Are you planning on coming back? Full time, part-time? How often are you going to need to take off for doctors appointments? Who can take over your work while you are out? Etc. If you don't know the answers to some of these you can say your not sure yet, but I'd at least prepare to be asked.

My boss asked me several of these questions right away and I hadn't really thought about it, so I felt like I sounded unsure/unprofessional at the time. With the second pregnancy he didn't even ask me anything as he felt like I handled my first maternity leave well and he knows I'll be back to work in a couple of months. Everything will be a little tight for a while, but it will return to normal soon enough.

I work for a fairly small business and they were a pretty tight-knit group and the boss really tries to get people to stick around for the long haul.
I ended up telling him pretty quickly with my first pregnancy as I was pretty sick. Ended up miscarrying. Got pregnant again 4 months later and again told him pretty much immediately after I found out as I was horribly sick again and didn't want him to think I was being lazy. I just kind of walked up to him when we was alone and said "Hey, I feel like I should probably tell you that I'm pregnant." I went on to explain that my situation was a "touch and go" kind of pregnancy, the doctors told me basically that it could go either way because I had an SCH and the location of it was NOT good =/

If things looked good on your scan and you're not having a lot of sickness you could hold off another month if it makes you more comfortable, that way you have time to figure out how to word things.