Something very weird just happened at my office

[lancdem]

I work for a Sunday newspaper in southcentral PA. We have a large nwwsroom, and a smaller room off the side where my desk is. I share the space with four co-workers - two guys and two women. Anyway, I got in today and found that that one of my back-room colleagues had a healthy baby girl early yesterday morning. That's not the strange part (in fact, it's the best part). No, the part that still leaves me flabbergasted is that NO ONE HERE KNEW SHE WAS PREGNANT! OK, she told our boss about a month ago, but that's it. We wonder why she didn't tell us (at least toward the end), and we also feel like idiots for not figuring it out (we work for a newspaper after all - aren't we supposed to be observant? Duh!). In retrospect, she did look like she was putting on some weight, but she wore a coat a lot in the office because she was cold, so we never really could tell.

The funny thing is, our editor sent us an e-mail announcing the news as if it was something we should've expected. I'm still stunned. Anyone else ever have an experience like this?

[THUNDER HANDS]

1. no, but

It's not as if it's that polite to walk up to a women and ask when she's due...especially if she's NOT pregnant. :D

[lancdem]

2. Oh, I know that, believe me

It's just so weird that she went to such lengths to hide it from us. She worked 5 feet away from me, and I was completely oblivious.

[THUNDER HANDS]

4. I'm suprised you didn't notice

Her eating differently, or getting moody or having to go to the bathroom repeatedly.

[lancdem]

16. To be honest, I don't think there were that many signs

even in retrospect. I work with dozens of people, and no one had any inkling.

[Melsky]

3. I did in highschool

a friend who was a junior had a baby unexpectedly. She also wore coats and large sweaters a lot, saying she was cold. She was in a first period class with me, and missed that class a bunch of times because she was sick. We used to tease her that it was morning sickness. It was a huge surprise to everyone, including her parents. They found out when her boyfriend called to tell him she was in the hospital having a c-section.

I felt bad for having teased her, but later she told me that it made her happy. She knew that we wouldn't tease her if we thought that she really was pregnant, so she felt that our teasing meant she wasn't showing.

[eyesroll]

5. When I student-taught in Janesville, Wis.,

Out of the blue, one day, I get a note in my mailbox stating, "Student XXXX gave birth to twins last night, six weeks prematurely. She will be keeping her babies. Please provide her with homework assignments for her maternity leave."

We had no idea she was pregnant. She was a tiny thing, too. We later found out her parents didn't know she was pregnant, and that she got pregnant on purpose because her parents had arranged for her to marry someone (her parents were Cambodian refugees), and getting pregnant by another guy would be her way out.

The only clue we had was that she occasionally read parenting and baby magazines -- but that wasn't unusual in and of itself, since many girls (and a few guys) at that school took child-development classes.

[rwork]

6. As Dave Barry once said.

Never in your wildest imagination do you ever ask a woman if she is pregnant.

[lancdem]

17. I know people who have made that mistake

I know enough never do that.

[bif]

7. A friend of my wife's 16 year old niece

Told her mom she was pregnant. About two hours later she went into labor and delivered a baby girl. No one knew she was pregnant. And she didn't even gain that much weight so it wasn't that obvious. A real shocker to the family, to say the least.

[catzies]

8. It says a lot about how women are still treated in our society

And that IMO the fundies and their war on choice and contraception has done a great deal of damage to the young women in this country.

I don't know, but maybe your co-worker felt she had to hide her condition because of workplace pressure? Fears of job loss? Losing benefits?

And as far as young (teenage) women having to hide, well, think about how many of those who hide pregnancy and labor successfully end up putting those babies in dumpsters.

[BiggJawn]

11. maybe she felt like it was none of anyone else's business?

hate to blow holes in that fine head of Mysoginist steam you're getting up there, but maybe the fact is that her job is her job, and her personal life is on a "need to know" basis. Which is why the boss knew, and nobody else.

I can see that, and it doesn't seem "odd" to me....

[lancdem]

15. It is her business, of course

but this is someone I would talk to about personal matters at times (like when her father died recently). We weren't best buds, but we were friendly colleagues.

[BiggJawn]

19. but she wasn't "close" to any of you.

That's what I'm trying to say. OK, so she needed to reach out when her dad died. this time, she kept it to herself. I don't think it's any reflection on you.
There's a bit of a gulf between "friendly colleages" and tight friends.

I have PLENY of "friendly colleages". How many of them do I hang with outside of work?

Zero.
but that's just me. I'm sure they're all capital fellows, but I'm just not a social person. Perhaps she feels the same way.

[lancdem]

21. I see where you're coming from

But the five of us who work in the back room talk about a lot of things, personal and otherwise. Believe me, I'm not insulted, and I'm thrilled for her and her husband. :)

[lancdem]

14. Actually, she's been married more than 20 years

and this is her first child (I think she's 42 or 43). She's not as outgoing as some others in the office, but I got along with her fine. She's an excellent reporter with a long career in journalism; her husband also is a reporter, with another newspaper. A few years ago, I knew she was trying to have a baby. That's why this is so strange; I figured if she were pregnant, she would tell us (at least those of us who worked closest to her) eventually, perhaps after she felt comfortable she wouldn't miscarry.

[MadHound]

24. There's a clue right there

She's in her early forties, having her first child. Bad, bad ju-ju. Lots of complications with older women having kids. Miscarriage, still birth, birth defects, so forth and so on. Perhaps she didn't wish to raise everybody's hopes(including hers) just in case the pregnancy went south. And when you are that old, the only time you feel comfortable that there won't be a miscarriage is when you are holding your child.

Good luck to her and her husband. Congratulations!

[Lisa]

9. don't fault your observational skills ...

On some people it just doesn't show much.

My mom weighed about 80 lbs. before she became pregnant. I was a relatively small baby (5 lbs.). About 3 weeks before she had me, she was approached by an acquaintance in the grocery store, who said, "I guess it was too cold to bring the baby -- was it a boy or a girl?"

She hadn't realized that my mom hadn't given birth yet!


By the way, mom's a public health nurse, and at the time she was finishing up teaching a pre-natal class. Many of the mothers I met later, since I went through school with those kids. There was a widespread consensus that the other mothers were "freaked out" because it didn't look like she was pregnant at all!

[KCDem]

10. I often can't tell if women are pregnant or just have lots of mid-section

fat. The only women I'll venture a guess on whether or not they are pregnant is those who are thin aside from their portruding belly. Both times I was pregnant, I took it as a good sign once people started asking me if I was pregnant: that meant that otherwise, they considered me to be thin. If your coworker wasn't dressing in a way that showed off her belly, it's understandable that you didn't notice. I do feel a bit sad for her, though, in that she didn't feel comfortable enough to share the news with her coworkers.

[kmla]

12. Hey - just be glad

you don't work at at detective agency. This would be great news for your detective agency competition to get ahold of...

[BlueJazz]

13. Years ago, when I was the Manager of a Home Depot ....

....I had a large pregnant lady (or so I thought) come up to me and
with a frown on her face says "One of your employees insulted me"
I said: Oh, what happened?
She: He asked me when my baby was due.
I swear..I swear...I started to explain to her that he was just being friendly and all that...(at the last second realized she wasn't pregnant!)

Anyway, I worked it out and just told the employee (very nicely)
that: "Ah, it might not be a good idea to comment on pregnantcy any more!

[NoBorders]

18. Not that weird--smart, legally-speaking

My wife was fired after her boss learned she was pregnant and wanted to take maternity leave.

[lancdem]

20. That's terrible! Did you take action?

(BTW, we've had other women here have children and take maternity and/or family and medical leave, and there were no problems.)

[NoBorders]

22. Yes, she did but it eventually went no where

Just too damn expensive. The large company that did this had their gang of high-priced lawywers against our single little contingency lawyer, and they basically could outspend us.

Where I work, I don't think this would ever happen to a woman. But my wife worked for an a**hole. It comes down to the individual manager, really. It was extremely frustrating.

But in regards to this woman at your work, who knows? I know that my wife's friends, who knew about her situation, waited as long as possible before telling anyone at work about their pregnancies.

[neuvocat]

23. Actually yeah

when I was in the military we were all out on this big run and some girl collapsed (looking back, I think she tried to kill it). I was a friend of the father and honestly didn't have a clue.