When Should I Announce My Pregnancy When My Employerer Is...

Please document everything that's been going in. If you don't have an HR dept then I'm guessing your company isn't big enough to qualify for FMLA. So I would proceed with caution - wait to tell for as long as possible. Document everything along the way - your successes, and discussions with your boss, etc. This way if he does fire you you will hopefully have backup to support it's pregnancy discrimination vs. performance issues. But if there is no FMLA protection, your leave is probably going to be limited - I'd probably start looking for other jobs, too. Good luck!

Well, first of all, regardless of when you tell him, you cannot get fired for being pregnant, as that would be discrimination and ulitimately you could take him to court for it. Second, the usual process in reporting a pregnancy is around 3 months, as there are a high number of miscarriages during the first 3 months, so it's a good rule of thumb to wait until that critical period is over. It sounds like no time is a good time, and there is no absolute rule as to when you have to tell an employer, so tell him when you are comfortable it being public information(or when you can't hide it anymore :))

It sounds like you have a case to report to HR for the kinds of personal attacks he's making against you in general.

That being said, there are a few different ways to look at it. You're going to start showing soon, so you're running out of time.

Generally speaking, a pregnant woman is an HR nightmare (meaning, they usually can't touch you while you're pregnant because of concerns of discrimination). So, you could use that to your advantage and tell them sooner vs. later.

Or, you could wait, but if he's that out to get you, he could drop the hammer anytime and leave you pregnant without a job and no recourse.

It's a really sticky situation.
In both cases when I had to tell my employer I was pregnant, I did it early (around 5 weeks). That is what I was most comfortable with personally.

Good luck!

Melanie,

I agree with all the comments regarding your hostile work environment... so that set aside... I would wait for your first trimester to pass before telling your boss. Miscarrages are fairly common (I've had 2), so you wouldn't want to deal with that at work on top of everything else.

Congratulations and good luck!
~A.

If your job does not put your pregnancy in danger (no heavy lifting/x-rays/chemicals...) then you can choose to hide it as long as you want. I had a co-worker (teacher) tell me she once hid a pregnancy for 6 months--I'm sure that was tricky, but doable in winter clothing, and she was able keep doing to do her job well.

The advice to document everything is excellent. Do you have coworkers who can vouch for you too? I think you should take your list of offenses to the next level supervisor/manager/owner if you can. You can probably take another person (co-worker or outside friend) to this meeting with you as a witness.

Whatever you do, document your performance (compared to the job description and compared to others as you can) so they can't fire you and blame your performance instead of the pregnancy.

Good luck in your sticky situation.

NO NO NO NO...don't tell him!!!!!!!! None of his buisness. Wait until it is obvious to tell him. In the mean time, start looking for another job to start after you have the baby. Go on maternity leave.....then come back, give your two weeks notice,and quit.
Your employer can't discontinue your medical if you are on maternity leave....and if you quit after your maternity they can' tmake you to return.

Document everything.

I was having problems with another employee prior to my discoveries. She had hit me and I was in the middle of fighting that battle because the employer said we still had to work side by side and I was requesting we be separated since I had enough of this woman. I was actually trying to work on being moved out of the department, however believe my boss was working against that move. I think I was still there as part of her personal control issues and refusal to show her boss that she had lost an employee. She is now retired and I am sure to this day she probably tells everyone how everyone loved her.

Anyway, I was speaking to the head of HR when I discovered I was pregnant. I didn't know what to do at this point, but the woman I was having trouble with tried to play some sort of stupid game of chicken with me in the hall and I was tired of the harassment. So, I sent the head of HR an email stating I was pregnant and was afraid of losing my husband first baby in the stress of the mess and or dodging the woman so that I couldn't be accused of touching her. As well, I added all of the history in the email, much like a newspaper will do when telling a story even though everyone already knows the history of the past story. No sooner did I hit the send button, did my phone ring and the head of HR ask me to come see him.

Suddenly, I was told someone saw the woman do that do me and she was given two days off and it was filed in her report.

I requested (due to my age and personal request) that they not make any announcement, as I would do that when I was ready. It killed my boss. She kept telling she didn't know what the big deal was. It was now my turn to toy with her. It was my business and there are privacy laws in place.

So in my case, it worked to my advantage, but it is your business and you can tell them whenever you want or not at all.

Just take your time and think it out well in what you plan is. Once they realize you are working on protecting yourself and not sharing with them out of emotion, they back off because it is not worth it to them to set themselves up for a lawsuit.