Telling your boss you're pregnant

After a lot of anxiety and worry and unnecessary freak-outs and soul searching, I finally told my boss(es) that I'm pregnant.

I told the first one toward the end of my overnight shift. She's the executive producer of the morning news, so my boss during those hours although not the boss (or the decision-maker) of the entire organization. She's engaged, as well, and every now and then, between the never-ending list of things you have to do in 30 seconds or less to produce a three-hour newscast, we talk about our impending nuptials.

"So how goes the wedding planning?" I ask her, both of us still typing away, our backs to each other.

"It's good," she says. "I realized yesterday I hadn't actually picked flowers or a cake or a DJ yet, and there's only four months to go, so I scheduled all of them at once."

(Oh, the days when my wedding was my main source of worry and planning and not how I'm somehow going to manage to care for an infant that was in no way expected or scheduled.)

"Well, it must be nice to be all done," I respond.

And then, in the clumsy way I've become accustomed to telling people, I blurt it out.

"My wedding's been postponed a month, because I'm pregnant and due in February."

The typing stops, and for a moment the only sound filling the newsroom is the dozen or so police scanners all screaming about a suspect on the loose or a suspicious man in a white T-shirt and jeans roaming the streets.

She turns toward me and puts her hands on my knees.

"Congratulations, Sarah!" she says wholeheartedly. "I can't believe you've been working this shift the whole time; I can't even imagine!"

Her answer's not completely shocking or anything, but this is a woman who is always in work-mode (you really can't be any other way in this business). She's seems nice, but never exceedingly warm or compassionate.

I tell her about my fears of staying at this job, of pushing myself too hard. She tells me what I needed to hear, that my life and health are more important, that it's my right to take time off for a child.

Later, I get up the nerve to tell my other boss, the executive producer over the whole shebang. We go into her office, where I presume she thinks we're going to talk about me taking on some shows by myself as a producer.

The second the door closes, I blurt it out again, this time with arguably even less tact.

"I'm pregnant," I say.

This woman is a mother of three. When she hired me, she told me she'd worked there for eight years and had taken off two when her third was born. I worried the most about telling her, since she was the one who hired me, interviewed me, promoted me, had the authority to fire me or grant me the leave I want or deny it. But I hoped she would be understanding. She'd taken off two years, after all.

But the look on her face is nothing but pure compassion. She knows about my Crohn's and that I've been working frequent 12 hour overnight shifts.

And she tells me the same thing.

"Sarah, when it comes to this job," she says, "your personal life is always more important. When it comes to your life, screw this place."

She says I can leave whenever I want (granted I give plenty of notice). I tell her I plan to leave in November or December, and to (hopefully) come back two months or so after giving birth.

"Whatever you need," she says.

And I'm not even kidding.

From the second I saw the result on my home pregnancy test, I've been convinced the world wouldn't approve. In this age of Bristol Palin and 16 and Pregnant and Britney Spears' public parenting tactics and Judd Apatow's take on procreating and drive-through Plan B pills, being pregnant hardly feels like a good thing.

With my parents, my sister, my friends, the world, even myself, I was terrified each time I admitted it. I sweat and nearly hyperventilate each time I plan to say the words.

"I'm pregnant."

To be pregnant at my age, before I've gotten married, before I obviously planned it, feels like admitting failure. I didn't use condoms and birth control, and I easily could have, so, therefore, I failed.

But each time I've let the secret slip, I've been presently surprised. Everyone's been exceedingly supportive.

I left work that day, for the first time in ages, feeling genuinely okay about my job and what this baby might mean for my career.

I haven't told the number one guy in the office--guy being the operative word. But I don't really care. He's a man, and although he has children of his own, he's never had to push one of them out. I have female support behind me, and that's plenty. Even if he vetoes the whole thing and kicks me to the curb altogether, at least then I'll know it's just because he doesn't--and can't--understand, not because I did something wrong.

It's all gonna be just fine, I think.

Maybe even better than it would've been otherwise, if everything had gone to plan.

Read more...

Can women really have it all?

She's the kind of woman who always dresses the part. She always walks into work with heels, looking professional, smiling, her shoulders up and back. She's the woman who has a picture of her pigtailed four-year-old as her computer background and another of her sitting on Santa's lap taped beside the screen. She's got an ease about her--you just know, from your first day in the office, that she's one of the head honchos. Even though she's only around 30, she produces the highest-rated news broadcast. She's been with the station for 10 years. She's a woman whose husband, when he calls in to ask a question like what she wants for dinner that night, doesn't ask for her by name. He asks for "the hot red head," and everyone--including me, the newest in the hierarchy--knows who he's talking about.

By any definition of the word, she's a success. She has it all.

During my first week on the job, I got to shadow her, follow her into the production booth while she ran her show. We made small talk. I asked her if she really liked this job--if the hours suited her, if she got enough free time (the question I asked nearly everyone during my first few weeks, when I realized I'd gotten myself into the entirely wrong field).

And she looked at me, sincerely, the smile gone.

"This," she said, gesturing at the wall of TV screens in front of her, the row of microphones she'd just gotten done speaking into, "this used to be my baby. But now my baby's at home, and working 10 hours a day is just too much. I try everyday to find a way out."

And here, with this realization off her chest-- maybe expressed to me so openly because I'm not her friend, nor anyone with a real place or reputation within the company-- her shoulders slump, her eyes glaze over. She doesn't look like she's enjoying herself. She has 20 minutes left to go before the cameras stop rolling and she can leave for the day.

This was before I knew I'd be faced with a similar dilemma.

Unlike this woman, this job is not "my baby." It's more like something to endure, something to suffer through because I'm supposed to suffer through it. Because in this economy, I can't expect all my dreams to come true like I thought they would. Sure, if I stuck it out, I probably would one day advance to a producer. I might even be seen, one day, as "that woman," that same woman who really just wanted to go home. But I don't want to. Not there.

I already feel immensely pressured by the battle of the Stay at Home Mom versus the Worker Bee, and I'm not even close to being in the thick of it. By our third-wave-feminist standards, if you stay at home, you're lazy. You're going backwards. You're not living up to your potential. If you work, you're likely going to have to work harder than any one person should. You're not giving your child the attention it needs. How can we have it all if the decision is moot? If you're destined to lose out no matter which path you take--and, even more, if the people doing the judging are women themselves?

I've gotten my fair share of judgement for the decision I've already made. I'll be quitting my job in the next few months. I will try to work something out with the powers-that-be that I might have the possibility to return. And even here, I'm tempted to spout off excuses for my decision--like my health (which, I'll admit, is something to consider) and the fact that as a new employee I'd get the bare bones of maternity leave.

I'm not quitting so I can be super-mom, so that I can be there for every single second of my child's waking life. I'm quitting for the benefit of the first few month's of my baby's life, the last few months of my pregnancy and my health and sanity, and for my career, because I genuinely dislike what I'm doing.

And the icing on the cake is that if I did stay, and I did take whatever leave they'd offer me, I'd be paying more for infant childcare when I returned than I even make.

I might go back to school for a Master's and then PhD. It's much more feasible to juggle school with a baby than a midnight til noon shift at a job that pays little and makes me miserable.

The truth is I have no idea. I know I'll only by 24 by the time I'm done with the beginning of babydom and when I think I'll be ready to resurface into the learning/career world. Most people haven't even started to fathom a career by 24. And I'm confident enough to say I already have quite a bit under my belt.

If you asked the woman I mentioned before if she had the unattainable "all," I bet she'd say no. But if the rest of the world judged her life (as it so loves to do), the answer would probably be yes. Hugely successful career? Check. Adorable baby? Check. Adoring partner? Check. But a satisfaction with life? Not so much, apparently.

I do think it's possible. I think we can have it all.

It's just hard to have it all at once.

Read more...