When should I tell my manager I’m pregnant?
While announcing your pregnancy to family, friends, and coworkers is a personal choice, I advocate for telling your manager—if you feel safe to do so—about your pregnancy earlier rather than later. Why do I advise this? First trimester.
The first trimester is full of joy, worry, and anticipation. It’s also full of a body that is adjusting to being host to a growing human for the next 9 months, while doing the most complex work of growing said human. You return to the mindset of a preschooler and require multiple naps to get through the day. You’re hungry all the time but even the thought of eating makes you gag. Or you have heartburn so bad you want to throw up but you’re not allowed to take anything. And then there’s the constant fear that the worst should happen, and you are no longer pregnant.
Every single ones of these requires accommodation, and not just lighter duties your job role requires a lot of standing or carrying. I’ve known so many pregnant people who try to hide their pregnancies until the 13th week, the 20th week, putting themselves on mute or carrying extra clothing with them while suffering through morning sickness, collapsing the second they walk in the door because they’ve been going since they woke up that morning, chewing gum or candies to alleviate the acid reflux, or even just quietly showing up at work like nothing is wrong when they are bleeding or cramping with no discernible reason, and all they can think about is what’s happening inside their bodies. The increase in Return to Office policies makes all of this harder to hide, as well.
You might worry that telling your manager you’re pregnant this early could result in a performance hit. Or what if you tell your manager and you have a miscarriage? These are very valid concerns! But also think about this: you will have to tell your manager at some point. Telling them earlier might help them plan for your absence during your leave. They may think twice about the timing of that large project or the big team offsite. And if your company is going to let you go or ding your performance for being pregnant, 1: better they do it earlier rather than later because job hunting will be easier the earlier you are in you are in your pregnancy (yes, there are companies that will be happy to knowingly hire a pregnant person) and 2: they’d have to be really sneaky about it to avoid a lawsuit.
And if you do have a miscarriage, you’d want to be able to have the support of your manager to take some time off to grieve. Hopefully your company has a bereavement policy that includes a loss of pregnancy, but even if they don’t, you can still try to work out something with your manager.
The bottom line is, if you feel safe to do so, and you have a good relationship with your manager, it is usually a benefit to give them a heads up early. You might feel safer signing off for an hour in the afternoon so you can nap, and catching up on work later when your pregnancy insomnia keeps you up. Or you might find that you can easily request WFH accommodations so you can manage that morning sickness without your coworkers’ tuna salad disrupting your day. You’ll be grateful for advocating for yourself, and for the support you’ll hopefully receive throughout the rest of your pregnancy. And, even better, you’ll set yourself up for proudly parenting out loud when you make your return, normalizing the lives of caregivers at your company.
