It’s Whiny Wednesday, your chance to gripe about the issues you’re dealing with this week. This week’s suggested topic is one we’ve all had to deal with:
An over-abundance of work pregnancies
I can relate to this one. When I was trying to conceive, I managed a small department of about eight people. One year we had three simultaneous pregnancies…and none of them was mine.
Whine away!
Off topic, but need to whine today, so thank you. I work in a school (teacher) and today the students have off so the teachers can do a full day workshop on anti-bullying. – Being the only “childless” teacher on my floor (and nearly in the school, of course the young teachers haven’t had their children yet) these types of days are always difficult for me because when it comes to lunch time, everyone goes out to eat. Of course the “My baby this and my child that” stories start right away and I become mute. I understand that’s normal, and 80% of the time I go out to lunch with everyone – but this week we lost a dear collegue so I will be at the funeral arrangements all weekend so I know I will get my fill of “My baby this and my child that” stories – so I’m at my desk pretending to work! I’m actually whining to all of you! I’m so thankful for this community! You are all my lunch date today!!
Hi Kristine – hope you had a lovely lunch – the time difference means I didn’t see this till today. LWB is often my lunch date too.
Dear Kristine, how well do I understand you! Once, when it was the hardest to deal with infertility, small talk at lunches (my baby this and my child that) was just to hard to deal with . So I just didn’t eat lunches for whole year – I went for a walk instead . But that wasn’t that good idea either, eating sandwiches for a whole year isn’t that healthy.
kind regards to all.
Glad to be your lunch date, Kristine.
At work, one colleague became a father again three weeks ago. He’s having days off (in Sweden parents have 480 days off from work with each child and often father’s are at home at least a few months of these days.)
The thing that bothers me now is that this man is almost exactly my age. We’re both 47.
I wish he was 27. Or even 37.
But now, I feel so tired, because I want to start thinking that it really and truly is too late now, and this makes me think stupid, hopeless thoughts of maybe…
On the other hand, when younger colleagues have children I feel hopelessly old and left behind.
So I’m never pleased, really.
First of all, that’s amazing, parents in the US get about no time off.
But anyways, yes I wish it worked both ways, I wish at 46 I could find myself a 30-35 year old guy and have a kid, the way older men can with younger women.
I was at a training at work the other day surrounded by very (to me) young looking women, I’m thinking they were right out of school, then I heard them all talking about their kids.
A coworker announced his last week. That’s six in the past year (5 pregnancies and one adoption). It’s tough.
This has been my past 2 months. The ladies who were the “preggo pals” 2 years ago returned in January and are now all pregnant again. One of the pregnancies was unplanned, and she makes a big deal announcing that only if her doctor would have had time for her to have an appointment so she could be birth control, then she wouldn’t be in this uncomfortable state. Thankfully, the older people at work are annoyed about her complaining, and overhearing their lunch conversations helps. Unfortunately this woman makes a big deal of ranting about how underprivileged people can easily avoid becoming pregnant and placing undue burdens on society.
Another of my coworkers was off for the last 5 months due to some unrelated issues, and now has come back (2-3 months pregnant). Because of this my boss is talking a lot about mat leaves, covering them, etc (without outing her because it isn’t public yet) – but that makes people assume he’s talking about the only early-30’s, childless person who has been married for a while….me.
I’ve also starting avoiding lunch dates by catching up on my blog-reading! We could start a club.
This for me, was and still is the hardest thing of all – I feel I have spent most of my life thinking “me next”! The year our journey ended (January 2014) – was the year we had 8 simultaneously in the office – the last of which has just left with many more in the wings I’m sure. I recite to myself whenever they pass in the corridor or speak openly about how hard it is being pregnant. I say to myself – we did everything we could, I wish you well and I think about what I am doing this evening, weekend. In the early days of stopping treatment – I would always have to recite this in the ladies and have a cry. I can now recite it at my desk and don’t cry. I feel a sadness most days that I let in and let out on a deep breath and the emotion passes, if it doesn’t pass – I visit LWB and put up a post – read others’ posts and feel less alone and more determined to live the life I have and let go of the life that cannot be.
In our workplace one member of staff had cried because it appeared everyone else was pregnant and not her as it reminded her of what she had sadly lost out on after she had had a number of miscarriages in a row. She is pregnant again now about 6 months and I hope she gets her rainbow this time.
I thought it was just where I worked. I’ve never worked with so many pregnant woman/fathers to be in all my life. It’s an epidemic! One person even discussed how she wasn’t sure she was going to keep the baby as she was ‘passed that time in’ her life and ‘it just wasn’t fair’ that she had to deal with a baby again!
It’s also school holidays in Australia and so far I’ve been asked three times this week if I could just ‘watch junior’, as the parent is off to a meeting for a couple of hours. The first time I was so dumbstruck they were gone before i could answer leaving junior standing beside me. To one I actually said no but they just laughed, said it wouldn’t be a problem and left junior coloring in next to me. I understand it’s hard to balance parenthood and work particularly if you are a single parent but seriously it shouldn’t be my problem.
Oh, this is a topic I can totally relate to. :p Here’s an old blog post about office pregnancies (there were many, many more after the events I described here…!):
http://theroadlesstravelledlb.blogspot.ca/2007/12/worst-christmas-party-ever.html