[~A2~]

Hi all

New thread time

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Regards

Ali

[mummy nicki]

Hi everyone, hope you all had a great xmas!!!

[mummy nicki]

I had a great xmas at home with DH and the kids. This bub felt left out so made sure I was nauseated, vomited and had a bad headache. lol. Had a nap after breaky and then one with the kids late afternoon.

I am 11+1 and hoping the nausea will fade soon. We are thinking about how to tell the kids. Anyone have any ideas on how to tell the kids they will have a baby brother or sister next year?

Still not showing, just fat. lol. Will start treadmilling it in the new years, have a start date of Jan3 (I am 12weeks then). Hoping that I will feel up to it by then, the nausea and fatigue ect will have faded, however if they havent then too bad! I need to lose some weight for the health of myself and my baby! I am only supposed to put on 9-11kgs cos im already overweight and Ihave already put on more then that, tho granted at least 5kg of that was before bub was conceived. lol, I had a few holidays and it was busy and frantic and filled with lots of boozey nights and takeaway. Also once the 3rd is here I will ban chips from this house. I am addicted mainly cos they along with passionfruit are the only things I havent vomited back up. sigh. thank goodness for vitamins, tho somedays I cant even take them...

Boobs are huge tho, they have grown. DH is pleased. lol.

Having some strange dreams lately. A couple of TMI sexy dreams (probably cos we are both so tired we havent had any sort of loving for a long time now) and then last night I dreamed about a dragon. Yep a dragon, who laid eggs and some little boy who told the wrong person and then the dragon, her babies and the other eggs had to saved and hidden. Very weird.

I hope everyone else is well. Tell me about your weird dreams please so I dont feel too strange. lol

[ro3008]

Bibendum- have you looked at your work contract or agreement for terms of giving notice of maternity leave?

I checked mine and its 10 weeks notice for commencement of leave. i would love to only give 10 weeks but I think a few people are going to notice!

Although i work in a predominantly female workplace, i see and hear very nasty things said about pregnant women, (oh she dosent care about work anymore shes off to have babies) sometimes its implied that I have just been hanging around in my role until i fall pregnant? and often when returning from leave, part time work is unavailable, and somewhat inflexible which is sad as my work is teaching young children and supporting working parents as best as I can. we have a divide at my work, older women and younger women and unfortunately the older women are somewhat bullies. this is the reason i dont discuss anything about myself in my work environment. I am usually very strong and and stand up for myself and document bad behavior and protect my career as much as i can but since being pregnant i feel very vulnerable and I am unsure of my reaction to these women.

Also I just dont like them and dont want them to be anywhere near my baby!

As for my boss she is wonderful and will be thrilled for me, no probs telling her and the other few people who I get along with i will tell and they wont discuss it for as long as my stomach is concealed!

Have you got a legal department at your work? or any advice from workplace advocates? it sounds like you need some professional advice and also hightlight exactly what is going on at your work. If your workplace does turn around and have pregnancy discrimination you will have the back up you need. It doesn't have to be a drama, its only work after all, but it would be nice to have all your ducks in a row before teling them?
Ro

[Bibendum]

Hi mummy nicki - I've had the weird, vivid dream thing too! I think it's a pretty normal symptom... Sorry about the nausea over the holidays! I've been really lucky on the nausea this time around, but the headaches have been killers...

Hi ro - I actually have excellent formal entitlements, fortunately - the organisation I work for is very large, and my sense is that the gender/pregnancy issues are specific to my team... I've actually stayed here specifically because the formal entitlements are so good - it's been a real dilemma as we were trying to conceive, as several positions have come up in my field (which is hard to get positions in), but we decided I just couldn't walk away from the maternity benefits I have right now...

But my specific team has a very ugly work culture - there's a similar generational thing to what you've described in your workplace, with a small number of older female staff who are frank bullies. There are also a number of older men who are extremely patronizing - basically, they style themselves as protecting younger women from "burnout" - by not hiring them in the first place... ;-P - since of course women will crack under the stress of the job... The tendency is for younger women - and I'm not talking super-young here: I started working here in my mid-30s, and am 42 now! - to be hired for casual positions only. This makes the excellent maternity benefits sort of moot, since by the time you get a permanent position, and then work the three years necessary to qualify for paid leave, you are generally too old for it to be an issue... Since I already had a child when I was first hired casually, I had to deal with years of skepticism about whether I would be able to handle the job on top of my parental responsibilities. I've dealt with it by being extremely private in the workplace - never bringing up home issues - and I have the advantage of having a really unusual skillset, which made me indispensable enough that they gave me a permanent position. But I suspect they assumed I was past the point of thinking about more children - it's been seven years since I had my son... So I think the pregnancy will place me back in the "untrustworthy" category...

But contractually I'm in a great position, if it comes to that. Like you - I think maybe this is a standard thing? - I don't have to tell them until ten weeks before I plan to go on leave. And, since I'm working away from the office between now and then, I could get away with waiting that long - no one would be able to tell, since they won't be seeing me... But my immediate manager - who's very new in her role - I actually do like, and it would put her in an awful position for me to wait that long. At the same time, I don't want to tell her yet, since I'd rather, if anything goes wrong with this pregnancy, no one at work know I was trying to conceive...

The promotion thing is much more complicated, since it needs to be endorsed by my immediate manager's boss, and that boss' boss... ;-P. My manager's boss is somewhat creepy, and I've had some pretty dubious interactions with him in the past, and to be honest, the thought of that guy knowing anything about me personally, squickes me out... ;-P. But what I'm most worried about is that promotion is not at all guaranteed - it is actually quite early for them to be putting me forward for promotion. But they have been fast-tracking it because I'm important to them. It's this that I think will fall away once they realize I'm pregnant - and I don't think it will seem at all strange to other parts of the organisation if they don't put me forward, since it will just look like I haven't been working here long enough. I don't think I'd have any formal recourse for objecting...

I'm also worried about the promotion application because my work consists in being handed a series of absolute messes, which I then fix, and hand off the fixed, smooth-running, streamlined system to other staff to manage from there. The first six-eight months of each mess is always... a mess... And since regular evaluations are run to gauge student satisfaction, if you don't know the situation, it looks like half my evaluations suck, and had are great. The real story is that they suck when I take over, and then I turn things around and they are great - but the promotion committee has access to the raw records, which on their own look like I have very mixed performance.

None of this is a problem as long as my program backs me - they attach covering material to promotion applications, which should explain all this. But if they decide not to back me (and there is a history of them doing things like this, and also of basically bullying people out of their "secure" jobs), all they need to do is basically just omit an explanation of the student evaluations. It sucks, because I am really really good at salvaging very difficult and historically very badly run programs and courses. But it exposes me and makes me really vulnerable compared, say, to someone who insists on working only in their specialist area, handling the same responsibilities every year...

Sorry that was such a saga...

[ro3008]

hi mummy nicki- i also had lotsa naps xmas day. my MIL was annoying me so i just went to sleep, got up to eat, wasn't allowed to help clean up, so back to bed. thank you santa!
yes i have ad sexy dreams and just weird dreams. its funny huh?

Bibendum- omg saga city. sounds very complicated but I hope not stressful for you. Its a shame that these environments exist. i have decided I am just going to wait as long as i can before telling the news to minimize the fuss. i will be leaving on maternity leave half way through a school year, but i have decided its not my problem, it will be theirs! here's all my work... bye! ha ha

AFM- nausea and headaches have settled right down this week and i am glad for that and fatigue has also lifted slightly. i am taking things very easy tho, not working and xmas being over seems to be agreeing with me. We see our OB tomorrow for our 10 week business, i hope he will scan or heart beat or something as we havent had anything yet. so excited

We are away for a week for NYE, a wedding and a 30th dinner in NZ. I have tried on my entire wardrobe and nothing will fit my bust! Must go shopping...lets hope ms fields chocolate brownies give me the energy to find three outfits :>

Whats on for NYE?

ro

[Bibendum]

No, not really stressful at this point - was a bit stressful earlier in the year, deciding not to apply for other jobs because of maternity benefits, but then waiting while it took some time to conceive... As it is, am really looking forward to taking advantage of the benefits that have been well and truly earned by this point...

New Year we'll be doing the family fireworks in the city, and a couple days later heading to Sovereign Hill for an overnight visit. Am also taking it easy - and taking advantage of my husband's being off work as well - he's doing almost all the cooking and house stuff at the moment!

[cattymeow]

Hi all,

Have left things a little while into my first pregnancy but wanted to introduce myself and wish all the mummies-to-be congratulations! Hubby and I had our first OB appt with dating scan and have found out that we have EDD of the 8th...with identical twins! So, while technically our EDD is 8th July, we're expecting the little ones to arrive mid to late June! Needless to say we were shocked and excited (once we had got over the shock at least).

Hope you are all feeling well and look forward to getting to know you all over the next 6 months or so!

Cat.

[photochick]

Hi all,

Have left things a little while into my first pregnancy but wanted to introduce myself and wish all the mummies-to-be congratulations! Hubby and I had our first OB appt with dating scan and have found out that we have EDD of the 8th...with identical twins! So, while technically our EDD is 8th July, we're expecting the little ones to arrive mid to late June! Needless to say we were shocked and excited (once we had got over the shock at least).

Hope you are all feeling well and look forward to getting to know you all over the next 6 months or so!

Cat.

Wow! Identical twins, congrats!

[cattymeow]

Wow! Identical twins, congrats!

Thanks Photochick! Crazy days ahead!