Who you choose to tell your pregnancy news to and at what point is a personal decision. Bridget Thakrar, a general manager at South East Water, shared her third miscarriage with her co-workers. And was shocked by their reaction.
A recent article written by Thakrar, which has been shared on her LinkedIn late last-month, depicts why she chose to talk about her third miscarriage at work. "I am getting better at processing my grief each time and slowly learning that talking about it actually helps," she stated. This has prompted her to consider why it's not acceptable to talk about miscarriage at work-- is it the shame and stigma sometimes associated with miscarriage?
It was clear when Thakrar would tell her immediate family the pregnancy news, as she described, it was "before the pee had even dried on the stick." However, the question she pondered was, "When should I tell my colleagues?" Early on, she told her Managing Director about the miscarriage. "Partly because of my history with pregnancy loss I knew there was a reasonable chance it wouldn’t go to plan and I was going to need support," she stated, according to Mama Mia.
Afterward, Thakrar chose to share the news with her team of 30. "I wanted them to know I was here for them and they weren’t alone if they went through something similar," she shared. Considering her team's demographics and the common occurrence--1 in 4 pregnancies end in miscarriage-- she wanted to normalize talking about miscarriage. The general manager admitted that Megan Markle speaking out about her miscarriage greatly helped her cause. The response from her co-workers? It "blew her away."
On a zoom meeting call, Thakrar opened up to her team about her loss. While choosing to be vulnerable, instead of feeling shameful for her miscarriage, she learned how supportive her co-workers truly are. She described the revelation best in her essay when she said: "The care, connection, and compassion that came from the team, not only for me but for one another, was immediate and intense. It was like a switch was flicked. Like that wee video had just provided permission for others to get vulnerable, share their stories, and reach out to one another for support."
At the end of her essay, Thakrar comes away with a key takeaway, describing that it's especially important for leaders to share their vulnerabilities with their team. "In my experience, it takes a lot of energy to try and keep those two separate. Being more vulnerable, bringing down these invisible walls between our worlds, for me made it easier to breathe," she said.
Thakrar is a proud boy mom-of-two who is active in Muay Thai. While she is still processing her grief, she is using this part of her journey as an opportunity to normalize pregnancy loss. "To encourage leaders to create workplaces where it is psychologically safe to share news like this if people want to, enabling the supportive infrastructure at work for what is an emotionally and physically taxing time," she said.