Dear Prudence,
I work for a very small company owned by a married couple, both in their mid-30s. The husband has a day job, and the wife works from home, so I usually only see them once a week. Two weeks ago, one of the owners informed us, happily, that they are pregnant with their second child. I was very happy to hear this news, until she dropped the bomb: She is only five weeks along. I have never had someone tell me that she was less than three months pregnant, so her news was very shocking. I did feel slightly uncomfortable about knowing about her pregnancy so early on, but I brushed it off. However, my discomfort started growing as it seems like she is having a difficult pregnancy. She takes two- to three-hour daily naps in the afternoon, will check out during meetings because she has a hard time focusing, and is constantly nauseated and has no appetite. During her seventh week of pregnancy, she texted all of us that she had “emergency health issues” and was ordered bed rest by her doctor for the rest of the week.
Now, all I can think about is the possibility that my boss has lost or will lose the baby, and I will admit (guiltily) that I do feel some resentment toward her for spilling the beans about her pregnancy so early on. I am a woman in my late 20s and have never gotten pregnant, so I can only imagine her physical and emotional pain, if something were to happen. Am I selfish to be upset that my boss, whom I have an employer-employee relationship with, told us about her pregnancy so early on? And if something does happen, what do I do? Unfortunately, I am pretty socially awkward, so acting like nothing happened will be close to impossible.