Infertility and baby at work Christmas lunch

[TintedMug]

It’s our work Christmas lunch next week. It’s on a working day and they’ve just extended everyone’s lunch breaks so we have 2 hours instead of 1 and it’s on work premises.
One woman is on maternity leave but will be coming to the lunch end bringing her baby. Which is obviously fine generally. The issue is for me, I’m not sure I’ll cope. We were pregnant at the same time (not that she or anyone else knew as I didn’t tell anyone) but I miscarried at 9 weeks. That was an IVF pregnancy (have been trying for 5 years naturally and IVF over that time) and was my second miscarriage. Since she’s been pregnant and had the baby I’ve had another round of IVF and lost that one as well last month. And that’s it for us. Due to age and finances we are at the end of the line. I will now never have children. Obviously this is something that I’m struggling to come to terms with.

I’ve spent years faking being fine with not having children. I tend to tell people I don’t want them or just make a joke about being too old and set in my ways for that “haha” plus I love my holidays “haha”. I don’t. I can’t afford holidays after paying for multiple IVF. I don’t think even my husband knows how devastated I am. I tell him it’ll all my fine and we’ll have lovely holidays in the future. But really I contemplate leaving him regularly so he could try and meet someone else to have children with as he so desperately wanted to be a dad and it’s my fault he can’t.

How can I get through this meal? Everyone is so excited about her bringing the baby. The group chat has been renamed from Christmas lunch to cuddles with baby. I can’t call in sick as I can’t let the job down and also I’m self employed so won’t get paid. So what reason could I have for not going in the middle of the day? Realistically I know there isn’t a reason and I have to suck it up. But I’m not sure I’ll make it through the afternoon. I’ll be seeing clients all afternoon and need to be “happy” and on it. I usually time seeing friends babies so I can go home and cry after. But I can’t do this next week. This is also the first time I’ll be around a baby since my last miscarriage and realisation it’ll never happen for me.

To be honest I don’t know why I’ve written this thread. I know non parents on here don’t get well received. I’ve read enough threads about how lonely I’ll be in old age and how much of a burden I’ll be on society. So yeah I get it. I’m not as important as mothers so I just need to get over myself. I know that.

Say you have terrible period pain / a migraine coming / diarrhoea.

I'm so sorry, OP. Reading your post felt like looking in a mirror—I could have written most of it myself. What you’re going through is truly devastating. Unless someone has experienced infertility, IVF, or miscarriages firsthand, they can’t fully grasp the indescribable pain it brings.
If I were in your position, I might say I had a last-minute doctor or dentist appointment to avoid attending the lunch. Protecting your mental health is more important than anything else right now. If attending is absolutely unavoidable, I’d try to keep my distance from the baby as much as possible.
Is there anyone at work you trust enough to share your situation with beforehand? They might be able to help discreetly, like ensuring the baby isn’t brought close to you, without making it a big deal.
Take care of yourself.

This sounds great. Well needed. No one wants to stop congratulating people on pregnancy/ new borns but in my old workplace it was way out of hand.

I'm guessing OP might be worried she'd break down, or that it simply might feel too raw to talk about? Just my guesses though.

Hey OP, just wanted to start by saying you are just as important and valuable as any woman who has had children. I'm so sorry for your losses. I remember being mid-way through my 4th round of IVF when a colleague brought her baby to work for the afternoon and I ended up having to pretty much run away and cry. So I can understand how hard this lunch would be.
Please please do not make yourself go. Either call in sick or have an 'emergency phone call late morning and say you have to miss the lunch. You should not torture yourself. Try and give yourself the same grace and kindness that you would give a sister or close friend.
Sending lots of love x

I'm so very sorry you're going through this. The grief of the babies you've lost and the babies won't have must be an incredibly heavy burden.

Others have given good ideas for the lunch, like an emergency call that takes you away just those couple of hours.

I just wanted to add two things:

Firstly, I hope you soon feel able to share your grief more fully with your husband. Your relationship is more important than ever. Drawing together in difficulty will only strengthen your bond. Trying to protect each other by hiding the depth of your grief, though kindly meant, leaves you more separate than before.

Secondly, my experience of grief is that it doesn't disappear, and it certainly goes up and down in intensity, sometimes unpredictably, but that generally over time you become more accustomed to it.

I wish you strength and comfort.

Don't go. Have an emergency dental appointment. Oh dear you cracked your tooth last night! You need to see the dentist asap.

And I'm sorry you're feeling sad OP. You are not lesser for not having children and anyone who thinks so is an arsehole.

Can you go out for a meal with a friend or your DH instead?

If you want to go then I would use it as a good time to find out what works/doesn’t work for you.

Do you know the seating plan?

I would speak to your boss in the morning and say you’ve had some bad news and that you need to sit on the end in case you need to leave in an emergency and I would try and sit on the same side but away from this woman.

If you feel yourself getting upset, then act like you’ve just had a phone call and take yourself out (take your bag with keys etc with you).

If you feel that you can’t go back in, then text/ring your boss and say you’ve had to leave and you will transfer the money for your meal over.
If you’ve left your coat or anything then ask them to bring it with them into work.

It’s likely that you’re just as worried about other people seeing you upset over the baby, than actually being upset.

And so I think if you have another excuse like a family issue (you don’t need to go into detail), it will just help ease that pressure on you.

I feel like it needs to be extended to staff. My management team has been brilliant - some of the staff …. Not so much. And realistically not all managers can sit in the office and police the random chat.

I read it as meaning people in general are fine with it, not that it's generally fine. Either way, it's not fine for someone who is actually at work to have to avoid a work event because someone who is currently not at work wants to take over the event.

I'd like to say that I'm shocked at the insensitivity but I'm not. The absent colleague with the baby does not trump the OP.

I really feel for you, OP, and of course YANBU. You need to get out of it.

Do you have any trusted confidant(e)s in work who know what has been going on and could help you make a plan?

Well, the OP says 'Which is obviously fine generally. The issue is for me, I’m not sure I’ll cope', which sounds very much like, it's fine in principle and it's her own (very sad)specific circumstances that make it not fine for her.
And I think the rest of the group being enthusiastic and excited about it does trump the one person who would find it hard, although I'll say again I really feel for the OP and can see why she would find it so difficult and painful.
I think quietly excusing herself, whether by telling a white lie or being upfront about it being very hard for her to handle, is much better than asking that the whole rest of the group don't see this colleague and baby when they obviously want to.
I also don't get this idea that the colleague with the baby is 'taking over' the event; I think that's a very uncharitable and unkind view.

Personally I think making the baby the whole focus of the event is what's disproportionate. Although I suppose at least this way the baby's presence has been announced and OP has had enough warning that she can choose not to attend, as opposed to the baby's mum randomly turning up with him or her in the middle of the day with no 'warning' so to speak.

How devastating for you and your husband @TintedMug, please share your grief and your feelings of letting him down. Don’t shut him out as like another poster said he wanted to be a parent with you, not with anyone else. You need to grieve together and not push him away bottling up your feelings.
Can you take a mental health day using any holiday you might have left? Is it possible to WFH? If none of them are possible I would go out while the party is on telling people I wasn’t feeling up to it as had recently had a Msc or you’ve recently had devastating news.

It's been renamed 'cuddles with baby'! How is it 'unkind' to think it's being taken over by the colleague on maternity leave? It is now her event, not the social Christmas meal planned.

Yes, I agree about the warning.

The whole rest of the group seems to want to make the baby the focus, so I think in that case majority rules. Or, to put it another way, by disproportionate I mean one person dictating the event is not proportionate when clearly a much larger group does want to see the woman with the baby.

It's the whole group who are excited about seeing the woman with the baby. It's not the new mother herself who's crashed the discussion and is going to take it over against the group's wishes.

Thank you.

My sympathy is with you on all levels @TintedMug.

Exactly. The focus of the whole event is now a colleague on maternity leave. It's no longer a Christmas meal.

The suggestion from a lot of posts seems to be that the new mother has muscled in and is now dominating the group, possibly not with general approval. Is everyone just wilfully ignoring the strong possibility (if not fact, going by the group's behaviour) that this is in fact a change that's happened by enthusiastic consensus?

I think this thread is going off piste a bit talking about the appropriateness or not of making the event about the maternity leave person and baby.

OP this sounds like a horrible situation for you and I agree with others that you should probably find a way not to put yourself through it.

You've been through a terrible time and you need to give yourself the space to come to terms with it.

Take care x

@TintedMug My heart breaks for you reading your OP.

If you're really sure you can't face going, don't go. Perhaps you could invent an unmoveable appointment which just happens to clash, like a medical appointment you've been waiting for for a long time, or an old friend who lives on another continent who happens to be passing through.

Can you work from home? If so, perhaps you could call in that morning and say you're feeling unwell, OK enough to work from home but not well enough to attend the lunch.

If you trust your manager you could tell them the real reason, but only if you trust them that it goes no further.

Could you simply sit as far away as possible from the baby? It's going to be hard though perhaps you could use this time as an opportunity to actually let people know what you have been through, they really have no idea so they can't try to protect your feelings

You have my sympathy OP.
Although most of us here are mums, many of us have had baby losses and realise how hard it is to be in your situation.
Yes excuse yourself from the meal and state that you cannot be disturbed in the afternoon as you are working on a difficult case (or words to that effect).
In the long term though OP you are going to have to confide in someone at work about what you are going through and perhaps think about some sort of extra support or counselling. (There have been some good suggestions earlier in the thread).