You are on your family way! Wow, but how hard is it for a woman to announce her pregnancy at work?

Her boss’s reaction, how supportive will the company be, will she still be seen as a potential asset for her employer, it’s an ongoing dilemma that we all face. Then few months back this glass broke with massive noise, and in came the news of Marissa Mayer, the newly minted Yahoo chief executive officer (CEO), who also happens to be eight months pregnant when she joined Yahoo.

Will a high profile job make any difference to a woman in her maternity phase?

Let’s explore this

Is Marissa really different? No. Apart from her huge paycheck, this 37 year old lady is just like you and me. She loves fashion, cupcakes, and chocolates; and started off as an assistant at a grocery store. And now like any women she is waiting to be a mother.

Yes, she has been smart enough to put forth this news in the best possible and smart way to Yahoo’s management, and their evolved thinking expressed no concern to this. Transparency worked well and now she seems to have it all. A fantastic job, a whole new chapter of being a mom, worldly luxuries and lot more, but what she misses is a maternity leave, as she has promised to work through, her mere few weeks of leave.

It sounds super that Yahoo hired a pregnant CEO and overnight Marissa became a role model to many working women, who were wondering if it is the right time for them to have a baby, since then they will have to make a choice between career and family. So eventually now, ‘Pregnant Executive’ won’t come in the same list of the stereotype dictionary as its own bizarre subgenus of Working Mother and Stay at Home Mom.

However, her pregnancy and short maternity leave has left us skeptical to whether she will be able to handle both worlds? But the smart way of handling her announcement to her new employer assures that she will make this work as well. It may mean hiring an army of nannies, or installing some high tech gadgets, like baby-cam through which she can have a peek a boo at her baby, while working flexi hours.

Being in the same genre of working women, we can filter out tips from the story of Marissa Mayer. No doubt her case is incredible, but it underscores the fundamental truth that, there is never a perfect time for anything in life, including babies.