I had her during the pandemic… I didn’t say a thing, and one day in a zoom meeting I was holding a baby.
They were like, “aaaahhhh what’s that?”
“Oh man, I found it at a mall. Crazy right?”
Good thing she looks just like me as she got older cause I’m pretty sure a few of them didn’t quite get the joke.
I didn't quite pull that off, since I had to go into campus during summer 2021 and my daughter was born in August, but I did let a few of my coworkers sit there wondering whether I was just fat or pregnant for the amusement.
😂 that’s perfect.
Mine was burning January of 2021 so we hadn’t seen each other in person since March 2020. I got pregnant in May 2020 (got so lonely I had to make a new person to keep me entertained). Several of them still don’t know I ever had a kid 😆
I don’t know why everybody is so weird about this. Do what you want (and congrats!). The last time someone had a baby in my department she didn’t make an announcement at all but word got around and everyone was happy to see the baby at the next departmental BBQ.
That’s cute! Let your dept head and/or HR first and work out leave so they don’t feel blindsided about having to replace you for a while. My dept head acted annoyed and then he caught himself because he knew that could come across as discrimination.
Welp, that must have been... not nice. Thankfully (/sarcasm), my institution just \*looooves\* bureaucracy and I had to submit heaps of forms to my chair, the finance dept and HR four months before my due date. It felt weird (as in, you're still at a stage where \*everything\* could go wrong) but in hindsight, it was one thing off my plate before things got more overwhelming
I just showed up six months pregnant at the first faculty meeting of the new semester and laughed when everyone was trying to guess if I was pregnant (but also no one wants to ask in case they’re wrong)
In my field the standard joke announcement is that you're beginning a longitudinal language acquisition study.
For actual work purposes, I told my direct supervisor very early (we work about 9 months ahead in scheduling spring courses) and then when fall courses started it was very obvious I was pregnant so the rest of the department figured it out pretty quickly.
LOL a colleague did tell me "omg this means you're really staying in our institution!" when I told them so I think the retention implications are real hahaha
My husband is known for his dad jokes. He tortures his classes with them, but it has become a fun game where students try to surprise him with ones he hasn’t heard before. He just went up to all his people in the department he’s close with and pitched a new dad joke, following it up with “yeah I really have to up my game now that TheProfessorsWife is pregnant.”
Got so many texts and calls haha.
Some of these responses feel so heavy and weighted. Everyone is entitled to their own take, but it was really sweet to see my partner so thrilled and having his own friends to share with (not just our shared circle.) To get to be celebrated as “dad”. I don’t think it is unprofessional. He has had an open door policy from day one and has been a wonderful support to so many peers and colleagues, and friends to some of his professors too. We have been met with genuine excitement and support and he gets asked weekly how I am feeling / to convey well wishes to me.
I hope you get that kind of excitement. And congratulations! I’m 6mo along so far. Not too long to go!
Edit to add: an admin role just had a work baby shower hosted by the dept, was quite the lil event, and another assistant professor and his wife just welcome baby number 1 and was showered with excitement. Our department isn’t known for having the best culture but compared to some responses here I’m incredibly grateful to be where we are. They even put in a lactation room for the mothers in the program.
I shared early on with my program director and department chair, and I asked them not to share the news with anyone. Another faculty member found out somehow and thought it was their prerogative to share it with all the other faculty and staff in a program meeting. So there went sharing the news on my terms.
I told the biggest gossip on campus. Everyone knew within 48 hrs.
I also had to file for an off-campus exception (pandemic) and arrange my maternity leave fairly early, to help with scheduling.
It actually worked out pretty well when my twins came super early. My gossipy friend arranged a meal train, gas cards, and other support.
First: Congrats! Tell your Dean and HR first and get your leave worked out with them. Take all the leave you are entitled to! Don’t agree to any small tasks they propose for you to do while on leave. After the admin details are all squared away tell your colleagues. Most will be thrilled for you, but be prepared for the trolls who will act fake thrilled or make passive aggressive comments about work stuff. F*ck the trolls!
My friend and his wife did that and I found it super cringe. I didn’t tell anyone about my pregnancy (obviously some people noticed eventually). The common thing in my department is for the parent to send a picture with the name and “everyone is doing well” etc. to the admin, who shares it with the wider team.
That’s how both of my pregnancies went. I notified the department chair and a few close colleagues once I reached the second trimester. Then knowing how gossip works, I just let the information trickle out.
I was also the first person in the history of the department to be pregnant while working. One woman had older children when she joined the faculty, one woman had adopted twenty years ago, and several men had taken paternity leaves but I was the first pregnancy. No one really knew how to act, so we just tried to ignore it, lol.
I guess that's part of the reason why I don't know how to act but am not really eager to ignore the fact altogether. This is happening twelve years after my PhD advisor told me, a first-year first gen, not to have children because "women who get pregnant don't go far in academia." It has taken me years to recover from that conditioning. I guess my need for joy has roots in feeling liberated from it.
Don’t let anyone discourage you from sharing your joy! We did IVF so everyone knew because we chose to be super open about our journey but I also consider most of my colleagues family and as the chair, it was information relevant to them so everyone knew. If you’re on FB, join PhD mamas, it’s a great group and you’ll probably get a lot of fun ideas from those folks.
Thanks for the recommendation and for the encouragement! I'm seeing a lot of comments advocating for discretion/ignoring the issue for various reasons, so joining a space like that FB group might be the right thing to do.
I personally told the people I was close with. This was during Covid, so no one saw me in person. I eventually was on campus during the summer for faculty photographs and a few people saw me then at about 7 months pregnant with twins…so pretty obvious. Everyone else got the email from the admin with a picture, their names, and “all is well”.
Thanks! I'm learning from all the responses that asking admin to send everyone a short message is a somewhat standard/acceptable practice, which is great!
Yikes, there are some parade-pissers out here! You’re allowed to be happy about and celebrate your pregnancy, OP! Announce it to whom and how you please. Congratulations!!
I just casually told people once we'd gotten NIPT results and found out the gender. Nothing fancy, but I'm also pretty private with my personal life online.
Speak for yourself. I care about what’s happening in other people’s lives. I am excited for anyone who has happy news like this. (Not that I need a clever announcement such as OP describes.)
I totally get not wanting a million emails, but at the same time pregnancy is a totally normal thing that should be totally normal in academia. The fact that people are here being like, oh we ignored it. Wtf.
I don't have time for that shit. If it were ONE email, I could delete and move on, but it will results in 30 different people using reply-all to say "congrats sarah!!" that will clog my inbox.
Quit with the announcements. People will know you're pregnant. You can tell the faculty in a meeting when you've had the baby if you want, but don't make an email announcement FFS.
Oh I’ve absolutely given up expecting any kind of discretion in group emails. I am at peace with the fact that I will spend 5 minutes twice a day clearing my inbox of the barrage of noise (emails) I’m getting every day.
I've had to literally blacklist some of my colleagues because they insist on using "reply all" for everything I do NOT need to read.
Folks, don't use reply-all for announcements. Ever. [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6693724/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6693724/)
I understand where you're coming from, but to counter your point, my colleagues keep asking me for updates, so I thought a careful group email (the kind where you BCC every recipient, not every message needs to be reply-all hell) might have been appropriate. So in some groups, evidently, somebody other than you cares. Of course, this is not to say that your perspective is not valid.
I totally agree. We’ve had a really traumatic and difficult pregnancy ’journey’, so were beyond delighted to have a viable pregnancy. Even with that, I still find it toe curling when I encounter ‘splashy’ pregnancies.
I ran into a colleague on the street while I was with my 8-months-along wife. Said colleague didn't even know I was married, but was able to get out some congratulatory stuff. The other people in the department found out when some items in the budget referenced the matter (it being not unusual in Japan for cash gifts to be given to new parents by the employing university). I don't recall ever telling other academic colleagues anything.
I never announced it, but I worked up until my 8th month of pregnancy, so it was pretty obvious. I also had to ask my chair for some accommodations. I think our admin sent out an email announcing baby's name and birthday (Christmas!) and said we were doing well.
It's funny in hindsight, but I never mentioned my pregnancy to my classes even though I was literally as big as a ship. Until the last day of class where some students wished me a safe and easy delivery lol
For everyone saying it's cringe, I live for a lil cringey announcement like this then so that I can give you a lil cheer and well wish before moving on. I think the little "Aww!" it would add to my day would be nice amongst all the unhappy news out there.
Step 1: Talk to HR to ensure you understand your options.
Step 2: Tell your chair next so they have as much notice as possible for scheduling purposes. But, talk to HR first so you know your rights.
Step 3: Tell faculty at a faculty meeting in the context of your upcoming availability/absence since it will affect committee work.
Don’t send a group email.
No one in my department announces these things, and unless I am really good friends with them, I would find such an announcement a bit cringe (especially using academic jargon, sorry).
But after the baby is born, either a close colleague or admin shares a photo with staff, and maybe collect money for a gift.
That said, one week we were teaching together with a colleague and she was logged in. As I was finding my slides, I saw the "maternity leave form" on her desktop and went aghh congratulations, I dont think the students noticed 🤷
Depends on how close you are to your colleagues. My department is pretty close. Last month I had my colleagues over for lunch at my house (2 blocks from campus) between TUG commencement and Grad/other commencement, and my daughter was wearing a shirt that said "I'm so cute, my parents are having another" to announce my wife's pregnancy. They all loved that.
Although the administrative assistant might kill me since I haven't told her yet...
J’accuse in a faculty meeting as a joke. (Just kidding.) Truly anything like this makes me grab my wallet because the perpetual associate professor who runs the “sunshine fund” will be trying to levy us each for $50.
Back in the day, pregnancy announcements were not well received.
I was the first FT woman in the history of the department. My male colleagues comments were of the inappropriate sort like, “Well, I never thought of you that way.”
All informed me that “they never missed work when their kids were born.”
When I met with my Dean to announce my pregnancy with my second son (and request a 75% load for the coming year (with the promise that I would not take a 6 week maternity leave)) he told me, “You’re either going to do the job or you’re not.”
Yup. The good old days.
Thank you for sharing this. The climate has generally changed, but as a student I've been subjected to the ripple effects of the situation you've described... I was explaining in another post in this thread that my [male] PhD advisor instructed me [first year of PhD] not to even think about getting pregnant if I wanted to stay in academia—scarred me in more ways than one. Good old days indeed. This was exactly twelve years ago.
I kept waiting until the opportune time and then ended up not telling most people until I was almost 7 months so there’s always that approach lol. I never made an announcement of any kind though; it felt too personal for that.
I informed my university’s Title IX coordinator pretty much right away. She was a good liaison to have even though I never ended up needing her assistance. I told my directors when I was about 5 months along. I shared the news with my 2 closest colleagues around that time as well, but everyone else sort of just got the news sprinkled in over the next few months.
Announcing that you landed a tenure track job is a great way to piss off members of your cohort struggling with a rough job market and precarious employment.
What’s your point?
Expecting people to suppress good news out of fear of offending those who are struggling is crazy. People who are struggling are also capable of being happy for others. The truth is we all feel somewhat conflicted inside when we hear about others’ good fortune! It’s normal, and shouldn’t prevent people from sharing good news.
Infertility is a painful medical condition, which you are apparently insensitive to. It has nothing to do with a difficult job market. By all means, go ahead and spam those colleagues. You already have a baby, just twist the knife in deeper for those who can't.
clogging up peoples' emails with personal matters like.. a pregnancy announcement.... is pretty rude, in my opinion. Just post it on social media or tell them in person. If you tell people in person over and over you'll get more mileage out of the joke, anyway. And you'll get to enjoy their reaction in person.
I had her during the pandemic… I didn’t say a thing, and one day in a zoom meeting I was holding a baby. They were like, “aaaahhhh what’s that?” “Oh man, I found it at a mall. Crazy right?” Good thing she looks just like me as she got older cause I’m pretty sure a few of them didn’t quite get the joke.
You and I have a very similar sense of humor 🤣
I didn't quite pull that off, since I had to go into campus during summer 2021 and my daughter was born in August, but I did let a few of my coworkers sit there wondering whether I was just fat or pregnant for the amusement.
😂 that’s perfect. Mine was burning January of 2021 so we hadn’t seen each other in person since March 2020. I got pregnant in May 2020 (got so lonely I had to make a new person to keep me entertained). Several of them still don’t know I ever had a kid 😆
I don’t know why everybody is so weird about this. Do what you want (and congrats!). The last time someone had a baby in my department she didn’t make an announcement at all but word got around and everyone was happy to see the baby at the next departmental BBQ.
That’s cute! Let your dept head and/or HR first and work out leave so they don’t feel blindsided about having to replace you for a while. My dept head acted annoyed and then he caught himself because he knew that could come across as discrimination.
Welp, that must have been... not nice. Thankfully (/sarcasm), my institution just \*looooves\* bureaucracy and I had to submit heaps of forms to my chair, the finance dept and HR four months before my due date. It felt weird (as in, you're still at a stage where \*everything\* could go wrong) but in hindsight, it was one thing off my plate before things got more overwhelming
I just showed up six months pregnant at the first faculty meeting of the new semester and laughed when everyone was trying to guess if I was pregnant (but also no one wants to ask in case they’re wrong)
I am 6 months pregnant and saw a colleague that I don't normally see yesterday. He just started at my belly until I acknowledged it. 😂
In my field the standard joke announcement is that you're beginning a longitudinal language acquisition study. For actual work purposes, I told my direct supervisor very early (we work about 9 months ahead in scheduling spring courses) and then when fall courses started it was very obvious I was pregnant so the rest of the department figured it out pretty quickly.
I can neither confirm nor deny tracking my children's language acquisition in a large excel sheet
I will very happily confirm the existence of my spreadsheet which I have shown in class, to my students, as part of a lecture on language acquisition!
Last name et al.
“You may have me in the department for 22 more years if this family education benefit isn’t taken away”
LOL a colleague did tell me "omg this means you're really staying in our institution!" when I told them so I think the retention implications are real hahaha
My husband is known for his dad jokes. He tortures his classes with them, but it has become a fun game where students try to surprise him with ones he hasn’t heard before. He just went up to all his people in the department he’s close with and pitched a new dad joke, following it up with “yeah I really have to up my game now that TheProfessorsWife is pregnant.” Got so many texts and calls haha. Some of these responses feel so heavy and weighted. Everyone is entitled to their own take, but it was really sweet to see my partner so thrilled and having his own friends to share with (not just our shared circle.) To get to be celebrated as “dad”. I don’t think it is unprofessional. He has had an open door policy from day one and has been a wonderful support to so many peers and colleagues, and friends to some of his professors too. We have been met with genuine excitement and support and he gets asked weekly how I am feeling / to convey well wishes to me. I hope you get that kind of excitement. And congratulations! I’m 6mo along so far. Not too long to go! Edit to add: an admin role just had a work baby shower hosted by the dept, was quite the lil event, and another assistant professor and his wife just welcome baby number 1 and was showered with excitement. Our department isn’t known for having the best culture but compared to some responses here I’m incredibly grateful to be where we are. They even put in a lactation room for the mothers in the program.
This is such a lovely story. Looks like your husband is a great prof and colleague!
I shared early on with my program director and department chair, and I asked them not to share the news with anyone. Another faculty member found out somehow and thought it was their prerogative to share it with all the other faculty and staff in a program meeting. So there went sharing the news on my terms.
I told the biggest gossip on campus. Everyone knew within 48 hrs. I also had to file for an off-campus exception (pandemic) and arrange my maternity leave fairly early, to help with scheduling. It actually worked out pretty well when my twins came super early. My gossipy friend arranged a meal train, gas cards, and other support.
First: Congrats! Tell your Dean and HR first and get your leave worked out with them. Take all the leave you are entitled to! Don’t agree to any small tasks they propose for you to do while on leave. After the admin details are all squared away tell your colleagues. Most will be thrilled for you, but be prepared for the trolls who will act fake thrilled or make passive aggressive comments about work stuff. F*ck the trolls!
My friend and his wife did that and I found it super cringe. I didn’t tell anyone about my pregnancy (obviously some people noticed eventually). The common thing in my department is for the parent to send a picture with the name and “everyone is doing well” etc. to the admin, who shares it with the wider team.
That’s how both of my pregnancies went. I notified the department chair and a few close colleagues once I reached the second trimester. Then knowing how gossip works, I just let the information trickle out. I was also the first person in the history of the department to be pregnant while working. One woman had older children when she joined the faculty, one woman had adopted twenty years ago, and several men had taken paternity leaves but I was the first pregnancy. No one really knew how to act, so we just tried to ignore it, lol.
I guess that's part of the reason why I don't know how to act but am not really eager to ignore the fact altogether. This is happening twelve years after my PhD advisor told me, a first-year first gen, not to have children because "women who get pregnant don't go far in academia." It has taken me years to recover from that conditioning. I guess my need for joy has roots in feeling liberated from it.
Don’t let anyone discourage you from sharing your joy! We did IVF so everyone knew because we chose to be super open about our journey but I also consider most of my colleagues family and as the chair, it was information relevant to them so everyone knew. If you’re on FB, join PhD mamas, it’s a great group and you’ll probably get a lot of fun ideas from those folks.
Thanks for the recommendation and for the encouragement! I'm seeing a lot of comments advocating for discretion/ignoring the issue for various reasons, so joining a space like that FB group might be the right thing to do.
Something something passed peer review, reviewer number 2. I can’t figure out how to make the joke work, but it’s in there somewhere.
I personally told the people I was close with. This was during Covid, so no one saw me in person. I eventually was on campus during the summer for faculty photographs and a few people saw me then at about 7 months pregnant with twins…so pretty obvious. Everyone else got the email from the admin with a picture, their names, and “all is well”.
Thanks! I'm learning from all the responses that asking admin to send everyone a short message is a somewhat standard/acceptable practice, which is great!
Yikes, there are some parade-pissers out here! You’re allowed to be happy about and celebrate your pregnancy, OP! Announce it to whom and how you please. Congratulations!!
I just casually told people once we'd gotten NIPT results and found out the gender. Nothing fancy, but I'm also pretty private with my personal life online.
I would tell close colleagues/dept chair etc and then let the news trickle out. I think group work baby announcements are so cringy.
Seriously!!! NOBODY CARES ABOUT YOUR BABY BUT YOU.
Speak for yourself. I care about what’s happening in other people’s lives. I am excited for anyone who has happy news like this. (Not that I need a clever announcement such as OP describes.)
I totally get not wanting a million emails, but at the same time pregnancy is a totally normal thing that should be totally normal in academia. The fact that people are here being like, oh we ignored it. Wtf.
I don't have time for that shit. If it were ONE email, I could delete and move on, but it will results in 30 different people using reply-all to say "congrats sarah!!" that will clog my inbox. Quit with the announcements. People will know you're pregnant. You can tell the faculty in a meeting when you've had the baby if you want, but don't make an email announcement FFS.
Oh I’ve absolutely given up expecting any kind of discretion in group emails. I am at peace with the fact that I will spend 5 minutes twice a day clearing my inbox of the barrage of noise (emails) I’m getting every day.
I've had to literally blacklist some of my colleagues because they insist on using "reply all" for everything I do NOT need to read. Folks, don't use reply-all for announcements. Ever. [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6693724/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6693724/)
I understand where you're coming from, but to counter your point, my colleagues keep asking me for updates, so I thought a careful group email (the kind where you BCC every recipient, not every message needs to be reply-all hell) might have been appropriate. So in some groups, evidently, somebody other than you cares. Of course, this is not to say that your perspective is not valid.
Or, they're just being polite, but they really don't care.
I care about that stuff sometimes
I wish I shared your assuredness re: knowing what everybody thinks, it's truly admirable.
I wish I shared your confidence that people cared about the details of my life.
I totally agree. We’ve had a really traumatic and difficult pregnancy ’journey’, so were beyond delighted to have a viable pregnancy. Even with that, I still find it toe curling when I encounter ‘splashy’ pregnancies.
I ran into a colleague on the street while I was with my 8-months-along wife. Said colleague didn't even know I was married, but was able to get out some congratulatory stuff. The other people in the department found out when some items in the budget referenced the matter (it being not unusual in Japan for cash gifts to be given to new parents by the employing university). I don't recall ever telling other academic colleagues anything.
I never announced it, but I worked up until my 8th month of pregnancy, so it was pretty obvious. I also had to ask my chair for some accommodations. I think our admin sent out an email announcing baby's name and birthday (Christmas!) and said we were doing well. It's funny in hindsight, but I never mentioned my pregnancy to my classes even though I was literally as big as a ship. Until the last day of class where some students wished me a safe and easy delivery lol
Everyone I know has sent out an email announcement with a baby picture. No big deal. Tons of babies over the years. A few puppies too
For everyone saying it's cringe, I live for a lil cringey announcement like this then so that I can give you a lil cheer and well wish before moving on. I think the little "Aww!" it would add to my day would be nice amongst all the unhappy news out there.
Step 1: Talk to HR to ensure you understand your options. Step 2: Tell your chair next so they have as much notice as possible for scheduling purposes. But, talk to HR first so you know your rights. Step 3: Tell faculty at a faculty meeting in the context of your upcoming availability/absence since it will affect committee work. Don’t send a group email.
No one in my department announces these things, and unless I am really good friends with them, I would find such an announcement a bit cringe (especially using academic jargon, sorry). But after the baby is born, either a close colleague or admin shares a photo with staff, and maybe collect money for a gift. That said, one week we were teaching together with a colleague and she was logged in. As I was finding my slides, I saw the "maternity leave form" on her desktop and went aghh congratulations, I dont think the students noticed 🤷
Depends on how close you are to your colleagues. My department is pretty close. Last month I had my colleagues over for lunch at my house (2 blocks from campus) between TUG commencement and Grad/other commencement, and my daughter was wearing a shirt that said "I'm so cute, my parents are having another" to announce my wife's pregnancy. They all loved that. Although the administrative assistant might kill me since I haven't told her yet...
J’accuse in a faculty meeting as a joke. (Just kidding.) Truly anything like this makes me grab my wallet because the perpetual associate professor who runs the “sunshine fund” will be trying to levy us each for $50.
Back in the day, pregnancy announcements were not well received. I was the first FT woman in the history of the department. My male colleagues comments were of the inappropriate sort like, “Well, I never thought of you that way.” All informed me that “they never missed work when their kids were born.” When I met with my Dean to announce my pregnancy with my second son (and request a 75% load for the coming year (with the promise that I would not take a 6 week maternity leave)) he told me, “You’re either going to do the job or you’re not.” Yup. The good old days.
Thank you for sharing this. The climate has generally changed, but as a student I've been subjected to the ripple effects of the situation you've described... I was explaining in another post in this thread that my [male] PhD advisor instructed me [first year of PhD] not to even think about getting pregnant if I wanted to stay in academia—scarred me in more ways than one. Good old days indeed. This was exactly twelve years ago.
I kept waiting until the opportune time and then ended up not telling most people until I was almost 7 months so there’s always that approach lol. I never made an announcement of any kind though; it felt too personal for that. I informed my university’s Title IX coordinator pretty much right away. She was a good liaison to have even though I never ended up needing her assistance. I told my directors when I was about 5 months along. I shared the news with my 2 closest colleagues around that time as well, but everyone else sort of just got the news sprinkled in over the next few months.
No need for any big or cutesy announcements. Just tell whoever you consider a close friend and that's it.
A big announcement like that is a great way to annoy or piss off your colleagues struggling with infertility.
Announcing that you landed a tenure track job is a great way to piss off members of your cohort struggling with a rough job market and precarious employment. What’s your point? Expecting people to suppress good news out of fear of offending those who are struggling is crazy. People who are struggling are also capable of being happy for others. The truth is we all feel somewhat conflicted inside when we hear about others’ good fortune! It’s normal, and shouldn’t prevent people from sharing good news.
Infertility is a painful medical condition, which you are apparently insensitive to. It has nothing to do with a difficult job market. By all means, go ahead and spam those colleagues. You already have a baby, just twist the knife in deeper for those who can't.
Absolutely. It’s one of the most heartbreaking experiences in the world and you meet insensitivity at every turn.
clogging up peoples' emails with personal matters like.. a pregnancy announcement.... is pretty rude, in my opinion. Just post it on social media or tell them in person. If you tell people in person over and over you'll get more mileage out of the joke, anyway. And you'll get to enjoy their reaction in person.
Tell people who will have to sort out new schedule. Tell your friends. Please don't send any group emails, we've got enough spam as it is...
Ew gross lol.