Work and Pregnancy
posted by Jen | 1:27 PM
I was sitting in a conference room yesterday, waiting for a meeting to start. Someone walked past, and seeing that it was just me and another woman in there and that we didn’t look like we were talking business yet, he stuck his head into the room.
“Be careful hanging around her,” he says to the other woman, pointing at me. “That could be catching.”
Normally a comment like that wouldn’t bother me. Ha, ha, pregnancy is catching. But, there are two circumstances that made it bother me this time.
1) A few weeks ago when I was lamenting that my due date is at a particularly inconvenient time relative to some things going on at work, he said to me “Well, you chose to have kids.” Like I just got pregnant without any consideration of the consequences to my professional life, which, as people familiar with this blog must realize, was not the case at all.
2) I happen to know that this other woman has been trying to get pregnant for a year and that she’s having some serious fertility problems. She’s handling it well emotionally, but I know how crazy waiting made me. And, I wasn’t in a place yet where I thought something might be wrong. She knows there’s something wrong.
I felt bad for her. And, I don’t see why me taking 2 months off work to have a baby is such a crazy thing. Some people take two months off to go on vacation. Just because I can’t control which two months this pregnancy would take doesn’t mean that I have any less professional ambition than before.
“Be careful hanging around her,” he says to the other woman, pointing at me. “That could be catching.”
Normally a comment like that wouldn’t bother me. Ha, ha, pregnancy is catching. But, there are two circumstances that made it bother me this time.
1) A few weeks ago when I was lamenting that my due date is at a particularly inconvenient time relative to some things going on at work, he said to me “Well, you chose to have kids.” Like I just got pregnant without any consideration of the consequences to my professional life, which, as people familiar with this blog must realize, was not the case at all.
2) I happen to know that this other woman has been trying to get pregnant for a year and that she’s having some serious fertility problems. She’s handling it well emotionally, but I know how crazy waiting made me. And, I wasn’t in a place yet where I thought something might be wrong. She knows there’s something wrong.
I felt bad for her. And, I don’t see why me taking 2 months off work to have a baby is such a crazy thing. Some people take two months off to go on vacation. Just because I can’t control which two months this pregnancy would take doesn’t mean that I have any less professional ambition than before.
Labels: baby
4 Comments:
It doesn't mean you have any less professional ambition; it just means you can't control the timing. Which you realize.
The proper thing to say would have been "well, you chose to have a job where dates are constantly changing."
June was great for you, work-wise, 6 months ago. But you never know when a hailstorm might ruin your day...or year.
Well, you might be overestimating how wise it would be to be flippant with this particular person. And I totally agree that I couldn't control the timing, but some people seem to think you can.
You would think people used to dealing with launch slips would understand better.
I would probably shoot back with something like "just like you chose that tie thinking it looked good."
...then again, comments like that are the reason I will never rise through the ranks of NASA :-)
Jen - you working ten months this year, from an efficiency standpoint, is the equivalent of me working 37 - have a baby, have two months off, then have this guy's tires slashed (I'll take care of that last one if you like).
Love,
Nicholas
Men... geez... they have no idea...
On another note, the bedding looks GREAT in your nursery! I'm so glad it got put to good use!
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