Signs you’re ready to tell your boss you’re pregnant

While reading the UrbanBaby Message Boards (one could really get addicted to such activity) this weekend, I came across a woman who was about 6 weeks pregnant and posted the question of when she should break the news to her boss.  This is definitely a gut-wrenching decision.  You don’t want to disclose your pregnancy too soon in case something happens (sorry, it’s the Jewish superstitious thing in me), but if you wait too long, it’s impossible to conceal the evidence (it’s not like you work on a sitcom where you can conveniently hide your belly behind a couch.)  Most women I know (including me) usually wait until the 12-week mark is well behind us.  But I think there are other tell-tale signs you’re ready to divulge your little secret:

• You’ve stopped wretching every time you get on the subway to go to work.  Unfortunately, this does not mean that people will actually give up their seat for you.
• You’re not quite showing, but your coworkers are giving you sideways glances when you go to the water cooler.  Sorry, folks, this means they think you’re just getting fat.
• You can resist the urge to crawl under your desk for a nap.  Sort of.
• Your mother you have told everyone she you knows.  Even the woman who waxes her lip clerk at 7-11 who sold you chocolate milk that morning.
• You’re sick of your bubbly “I’ve had 4 kids and still look this good” coworker asking you if you’re “trying.”
• At 4 p.m., any food leftover from random lunch meetings looks really tasty.  Yummm, pasta salad.
• You’ve calculated with your HR department how little how much paid time off you’ll get for maternity leave.
• The e-mail updates you’ve been getting from Babycenter.com finally show a graphic that looks like a baby instead of a blob.
• You’re actually excited to go maternity clothes shopping.

UrbanBaby preggo: good luck.

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