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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to think that if you are off sick with severe exhaustion/morning sickness then you perhaps shouldn't go to a wedding?

78 replies

Ceebee74 · 19/03/2010 08:13

I am totally sympathetic to people being off sick when pregnant - I know how bad it is plus the person in question has 2 other DC under 4 so no wonder she was exhausted

However, I am not sure if it was appropriate to attend another colleagues wedding in the middle of her sick leave? When she returned to work, she told us it was that bad, she couldn't get out of bed for 3 weeks etc - yet she managed to get out of bed, get ready, attend a wedding (afternoon and evening) until at least 10pm and, by all accounts, look pretty good aswell.

Am I being a bitch to think badly of her??

OP posts:
tiredemma · 19/03/2010 08:18

I find that I always mind my own business in situations such as this.

Whats to be gained from being so concerned what someone else is doing??

Triggles · 19/03/2010 08:19

It may have been a situation where she felt she needed to make the effort, as it was a colleague/friend. I know that I attended a few events when I was pregnant and suffering dreadful morning sickness (one of which was a wedding), as I didn't want to let down a friend. It was long and exhausting, but as I mainly just had to sit most of the time, I fared alright. But spent the next day in bed, worn out.

Or she may have left it until the last minute, and actually been having a mild to moderate level of morning sickness that day, enough to function well enough to attend the wedding.

I think when someone is off sick with something like morning sickness for a period of time, it's unreasonable to expect them to spend the entire time cloistered in their bed. There's going to be some awful days and some days that are not so awful. And some days where they'll brave being up and about, regardless, just to get out and avoid cabin fever.

So I think YABU, not to mention rather judgey. Why is it your business what she is up to while off sick?

Ewe · 19/03/2010 08:22

YANBU

I would think the same, if you're too ill to go to work then you're too ill to do anything that is perceived as fun imo. Someone at the company I work for was sacked when she took 3 weeks off ill and went to a day festival in the middle of it.

stripeyknickersspottysocks · 19/03/2010 08:22

The thing with morning sickness is you can have bad days and good days. I was signed off work due to hyperemisis for all of my pregnancy. I didn't spend every day with my head down the loo.

There were days I probably would have been fit enough to go to work but couldn't as I was signed off. I'd have had to gone back to the GP to get signed on (you're not allowed to work if signed off) but the next day could have been too ill to go in again. So maybe she was having a good day at the wedding? Maybe if she'd been having a bad daay she wouldn't have turned up?

Plus when I was off sick I was prescribed anti-histamines that work as an anti-emetic. They did help a lot but made me very woozy and tired, no way could I have concentrated at work. It felt like been a bit drunk/stoned all the time.

So with all respect I think you should mind your own business.

l39 · 19/03/2010 09:45

Pregnant with my twins, the only day in 3 months when I didn't feel awful was my SIL's wedding. I don't know why my nausea relented on that day, but it was very lucky!

Were the two colleagues very close and the wedding very important to the pregnant woman? I think you may be BU.

Coldhands · 19/03/2010 09:53

YABU and judgy. I have a long term illness that has no visible symptoms but I am on Incapacity Benefit and I cannot work. People probably think they same but you cannot actually see how someone is feeling inside. Yes I may go out and take my DS out for the day when my DH is off work, but its the evening and the day after that people don't see.

I would mind your business tbh.

NorkyButNice · 19/03/2010 09:54

I was off work for 7 weeks solid with hyperemesis - at my very worst (had been in bed for 3 weeks, only getting up every 30 minutes to vomit) I managed to catch a plane from New York to London so I could be at my parents house rather than alone in an apt all day while DH was at work. I did check with work that it was ok to do this.

Right now I've been off work for over a year with a condition that is aggravated by work. I see the company doc every month (as well as my neuro and counsellor!) but I could hardly have spent the last year sat in the house doing nothing.

yellowcircle · 19/03/2010 10:01

I think YANBU. I was off work for a long time with hyperemesis. During this time, DH's best friend got married. I was so ill that I couldn't move from the bed, let alone go to the wedding. I feel bad to this day about the time off work and not going to our friends' wedding but I just could not. If I moved from the bed, I would crumble onto the floor and be sick (I had lost so much weight and was very weak, at times I had to be held up to walk). I would probably just be sick not moving from the bed.

There is nothing to be gained from your talking to her about this or talking to anyone else at work about it. I think you just have to let it go, although it doesn't sound like my experience of hyperemesis.

RockbirdisdrinkingGuinness · 19/03/2010 10:16

Think you are BU and quite mean. Have also had bad morning sickness. Supposing that day she actually felt a bit better. Would you expect her to miss something like a wedding just because she hadn't been at work that week? That would be pointless.

I think you should butt out. Judging someone on this sort of thing does you no credit.

MiffyWhinge · 19/03/2010 10:18

YABU - massive difference between struggling through one important event and coping day in, day out at work

IMoveTheStars · 19/03/2010 10:19

YABU. Mind your own business.

AnyFucker · 19/03/2010 10:20

I would judge, too

But then I work in the NHS where generous sick leave arrangements are constantly taken advantage of

it is taking the piss, in my eyes

if I am ever off sick (as rare as hen's teeth), I am too ill to work, so too ill to socialise

end of

Cadelaide · 19/03/2010 10:21

I have an aquaintance, a maternity care assistant (think that's the term) who organised her own wedding whilst pregnant and off sick for the same reasons you quote.

I did not go down well, I understand.

herbietea · 19/03/2010 10:24

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn

swanandduck · 19/03/2010 10:26

Well, if it was a family wedding or something okay. But going to a colleague's wedding when you're on sick leave, even if you're not feeling too bad that day, is asking for comment. Maybe she was also a very close friend though, and she felt she really had to make the effort, with every intention of leaving early if she felt unwell.

AMumInScotland · 19/03/2010 10:52

YABU - if someone is signed off work, that doesn't mean they are totally incapable of doing anything for the whole period. In fact if people are off long-term sick they are often encouraged to keep as active and interested in life as possible to help them recover at an appropriate speed, as this is better in the long run than staying in bed when it's not utterly necessary.

But I think she maybe could have worded her comments a bit better when she came back - clearly when she said she "couldn't get out of bed for 3 weeks" it was a slight exaggeration. But that's normal when you're trying to make it clear that you don't mean "a bit of morning sickness" which people might assume was no big deal and wouldn't keep you off work. It was, in general, bad enough to keep her in bed.

Lutyens · 19/03/2010 11:12

I had terrible hyperemesis in both pregnancies. The first time I managed to drag myself in to work most days. My productivity plummeted but my face-time was intact. Second time round, I could not go to work. My brain had crashed and I was incapable of making any reasoned decisions or judgements. I was home for three months. In that time I still had to take 2 year old dd to mother-and-toddler groups etc. I found this easier than staying home with her as she would constantly be after me asking me to play with her. Outside, I could sit in a mindless heap and she'd play with the other children. I went to playdates at least thrice a week as it gave me a chance to collapse on a friend's sofa and have a sympathetic ear while dd played in another room. It was sooo much easier than being home wiht her.

Just because you're ill doesn't mean you have to stay home 24/7

BadGardener · 19/03/2010 11:16

depends whether or not she was dancing.

Original poster
Ceebee74 · 19/03/2010 11:18

I am well aware that being on sick leave doesn't mean you have to stay at home 24/7 as I have been in that situation myself - for all those with they 'don't be so judgy' comments are judging me too!! Sometimes the 'holier than thou' attitude on MN really irritates me.

I have no intention of talking to her or anyone else about it but I was just sharing my private thoughts with MN as I was whiling some time away this morning.

Personally, I don't think I would be able to turn upto an all-day social event where I knew my boss/other colleagues would be there in those circumstances - but that is just me.

OP posts:
GetOrfMoiLand · 19/03/2010 11:20

YANBU. I would be a bit at someone who was signed off sick but was then well wnough to attend a wedding.

It takes the piss in my view.

PavlovtheCat · 19/03/2010 11:22

YABVU.

I had severe HG in my last pg was bedbound for lots of it. I had time off work as I just could not do it. But, for one weekend, when I was feeling marginally better, I dragged myself out of bed and went camping for the weekend (overnight), it did me the world of good, even though I did not keep any food down, i spent time with some friends, and their children and it went some way to taking my mind off how bloody rotten i had been feeling for a brief period of time. Work on the other hand would have seen me running around trying to manage my work load and would have had me feeling so much worse.

A wedding is ONE evening. When people are sick, they still have good days and bad days, and having fun with friends is so much different to having to apply yourself in a work capacity.

I never get this attitude of if you are sick you must stay out of sight. not able to have fun? if you are off sick? so work is the be all and end all is it? It is what we have to mark our lives by? If we cannot work, then we are no good for anything? Are we bred just to work? 'oh sorry DD must not do anything that might be perceived as fun while i am not at work, they might not like it/it is not allowed'

And some people's attitude towards HG appalls me too. There is such a difference between morning sickness and HG.I had some comments like this from people at work who were meant to be my 'friends' overheard bitching behind my back at how i could not be that ill if I could go off gallavanting around the seaside, and how it was just a bit of morning sickness.

Servalan · 19/03/2010 11:22

What BadGardener said - if she was life and soul of the party, shakin' her groove thang all night, then that would be taking the mick.

Otherwise I think YABU. A wedding is a one-off event, and I can understand her dragging herself along even if she felt rubbish so as not to let down a friend or colleague. Also, it is possible she was feeling dreadful at the wedding but put on a brave face so as not to distract from the day?

I think going to an event where you can sit down for most of the time and watch in a passive way is very different to being at work day in day out with all the energy and responsibilities that entails

Original poster
Ceebee74 · 19/03/2010 11:25

Pavlov I think I may have touched a raw nerve with you - sorry! Whilst you were off sick, would you have attended a all-day social event where your boss was going to be there?

She didn't have hyperemesis which I realise is a 100x worse than morning sickness - I assumed she had because someone had told me she had been hospitalised (as it turned out, they had got their facts wrong ) so I asked her if she had had hyperemesis and she didn't even know what it was.

OP posts:
GetOrfMoiLand · 19/03/2010 11:27

Pavlov thank you very much for the use of the word gallivanting, I haven't heard that used for donkey's years and it has just made me lol.

bibbitybobbityhat · 19/03/2010 11:31

Yanbu OP. I agree with you. Isn't it strange that you can have "good days" but only good enough for you to go out gallivanting. Not good enough to try going back in to work. She absolutely sounds like she was taking the piss.