What can I do to stop feeling resentful about colleagues talking incessantly about babies following my MMC?

[BeansOnToastWithCheese]

I had a MMC last year. It was awful, as you'd expect. I also started a new job, with a new company shortly afterwards. Our head of department announced her pregnancy fairly recently, and now there's incessant talk about babies, pregnancy, who in our workplace is a mum already etc all over Teams chats, in our team meetings etc.

I know they're not being unreasonable really, although it feels like it. What can I do to stop myself feeling fucking awful about the whole thing? My manager knows about my miscarriage because I (very embarrassingly) burst into tears when she told me in a meeting that the head of department is pregnant and so I told her why I was so upset, but no-one else knows.

I don't feel I can tell the HoD to stop talking about it really but it's really bringing me down and I had really hoped this job would be a fresh start for me after the MMC and a really difficult time at my last job. Apart from the baby thing I really like the new job and team!

Strategies from anyone who's been in a similar position? Or should I just accept that this is the way it's going to be until my head of department goes on maternity leave?

I've been through similar OP, it is awful and I'm really sorry for your loss.

The way I got through it was by separating my loss and their good news. I had to dig in and find the objective bit of me that knew their good news didn't make my loss any harder to bear and focus on that. Logically I knew really they weren't reminding me of what I'd lost because I thought about my baby all the time anyway. When I felt upset about my baby it wasn't because the other person was happy about theirs and was triggering me, it was because losing my baby is the saddest most tragic thing that had happened to me.

Let yourself have your feelings, don't resent the other person for triggering them because our grief and upset over our losses is a totally natural and justified reaction. Being reminded about baby becomes less painful as time goes on, or rather your pain threshold gets better.
Be kind to yourself x

I'm really sorry about your loss.

I don't think you can reasonably expect other women to stop discussion their own lives, which include babies.

It's totally normal to feel sad and still be grieving.

Could you put on headphones and listen to music or something to avoid the baby talk?

Oh, op I am so sorry.

Have you been able to access any support for your grief?

Thanks all. I'm starting counselling again soon, so I hope I can discuss my grief there. The miscarriage happened just after something else quite traumatic had happened at my previous job so I didn't really have the emotional space to process it but now that I'm settling into my new job and enjoying it I'm finding myself thinking about it a lot more.

The headphones thing wouldn't really work because we're all at home so the chat happens in meetings on via Teams chat so I can choose not to participate in those general chats but I can't really avoid them - if that makes sense? But I appreciate the sentiment - I should just try to distance myself from those conversations where possible.

I really feel for you. I had 2 miscarriages and started a new job soon after. I found myself in a small chatty team with 2 pregnant colleagues. One had the same due date as the first baby I lost. It was really hard listening to the constant baby chatter. I found counselling really helpful, essential actually. Be kind to yourself, it’s a difficult place to be.

I've been in that situation and it makes an awful situation so much harder. My boss/colleagues knew but that didn't help. You can hardly expect someone to not talk about their pregnancy/babies but it was such a horrible time for me. Talking to others in the same situation really helps. I joined Mumsnet when I was pregnant and found the MC support threads really helped me in a way my DH (now ex), friends and family couldn't. It's ok to not join in the office chat when the subject comes up. A good manager should limit any non work related talk anyway so if it becomes unbearable, have another talk with them.

Its an awful thing but you need to find a way to deal with it. It would be unreasonable to ask them to NOT talk about babies.

Have you tried counselling? It helped me.