Sharing the news with my boss

I finally did it and talked to my boss. It went better than I expected. For some reason, I expected him to say something horrible, totally ignoring HR rules…but none of that happened. He is fairly new to the company, so he wasn’t able to tell me what I  would be entitled to. He congratulated me and said that he needs to talk to upper management.  This was last Tuesday.

On Friday, he messaged me asking to meet me so that we could talk. Unfortunately, I was completely swamped and we only ended up talking on Monday. Overall, I’m fairly pleased. I’ll take all my sick days for 2014 (and hope I don’t get sick during the year) + the vacation I would have accrued by Feb (3 days). Those would be paid. Then I get to take a medical leave of 6 weeks (unpaid). Plus, they’re giving me an extra paid week… as long as I don’t say a word to HR.

My boss talked to 2 other senior managers, but they haven’t said a word to me. Not even a congrats or ‘we heard the news’. I don’t know if they’re waiting for me to make a large announcement …but I think it’s weird that they haven’t said a word.  I work in a small office (we’re 13 people), so it’s not like they don’t know me or like they haven’t run into me. Anyway.

I shared the news with the 3 colleagues that work on the same project as me, as they will probably be the most affected when I’m on leave. Then I told 2 other people whom I’m the closest with. During a team meeting, one of the senior execs ended by saying “does anyone else have anything to share?” He was clearly looking at me. But I don’t feel comfortable announcing it to the whole team at once, in a meeting setting. It’s a little awkward and I’m kind of shy. I’ll tell some more people slowly. The others will eventually notice my growing belly and put 2 and 2 together.

So now, I just go to get my doctor to fill out a medical leave form, write down all the days I’m planning to take off, send it to the HR and I’m done. Yay! It wasn’t as bad as I though.

I’m still feeling really great. I’m not tired, not nauseous, not sick. I’ve gained about 3 pounds since the start of my pregnancy and I’m noticing my belly grow. I look forward to my long ultrasound in a couple of weeks. We’ll  finally find out the sex of the baby!