Noisy colleagues

Thursday, 15th July (12+6)


I got the shock of my life earlier. I was starving all day. I had a bowl of raspberries, a pain au chocolate and a cake bar all before 11 am and hardly made it through to lunch without getting more snacks.

So at lunch I did have a large portion of honey roasted ham with potatoes and carrots. I am quite known (in the past) to never finish the whole meal and – as this has changed a lot since I was about 5 weeks pregnant - this has brought me in a few comments from my colleagues over the past month or so. I still felt as if I hadn’t had anything to eat for weeks after eating every crumb on my plate. So I did something I try to avoid as I don’t want to raise suspicions. I went for dessert and had a lovely fruit jalousie. When I came back the guys at my table were suspiciously quiet. Suddenly a colleague burst out:

“We have to ask you something. Are you pregnant?“

All eyes were on my and I momentarily panicked. I stared at them in utter shock and thought they might have noticed my belly or maternity trousers or wide tops or that I changed to decaff. Luckily my body took control and I choked on my fruit jalousie and started coughing manically. Whilst I tried to recover, my colleagues starting joking that they really shocked me and the answer is obviously ‘no’ and that based on the pure horror in my face I am currently counting back the days since my last period (90 days exactly actually, thank you very much) to make sure. They said they just wondered because I eat so much in the moment and that would so not be me. And anyway, everyone in the office would think that I am the next to settle down to a family. They got quite apologetic.

I didn’t lie. I never had to answer. I don’t think they took their own question quite seriously and they read my shocked reaction as “Absolutely no, of course I’m not pregnant. Why would you even consider this?” when it actually meant “Sh*t, how did you find out. I need to tell my boss before I tell you. How do I get out of this one.”

So there is no question that I have to tell my boss tomorrow. But I was going to do that anyway. And next week I should then tell my colleagues. They’ll shoot me when they find out how close they were to the truth and that I didn’t admit to it, but there is nothing to it. It would have been fun to say “Actually, yes.” and see their reaction, but I really think my boss should be the first to know.

It was bad enough when I was asked by a colleague (who does not know as he is from the head office and met me for the first time) during a business meal earlier this week if I’d plan to have children soon. My boss was sitting opposite of me, so the first thing that came into my mind was “Maybe in a few years time.”

I’m sure everyone will understand that I wanted to choose my own time to tell people. But it also shows that I can’t wait much longer.