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Infertility

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Give me something witty to say to intrusive co-workers

10 replies

Psychgrad · 01/11/2022 20:23

i started a job in healthcare a few months ago and have been quite taken aback about how certain staff members feel the need to comment on my lack of child bearing. I look young for my age so it’s not really said until people realise my age (I’m 34). So far since starting I’ve been on the receiving end of about 4 discussions about how my fertility is already declining, how I must please my man and do what god wants me to do and so on… hate to say it but each time I get these lectures it always women of the same culture (no need to say which one). They speak to me as if they are trying to give me genuine advice, and I don’t believe they mean to be patronising but it is rather instrusive as I actually have fertility problems (known since I was a teenager) and really not in a major rush to do anything about it just yet as I just had a career change in the last year so financially not ready yet.

witty mumsnetters, please give me something to silence these unsolicited conversations in the most professional way possible as I am mostly above these women management wise and need to set good examples etc (not their actual manager though thank god!)

ps. I even tried telling one staff member that I can’t concieve naturally and instead of just dropping it, she told me ‘there’s things you can do about that.’

OP posts:
RambamThankyouMam · 01/11/2022 21:30

"It's none of your business. If you keep bringing it up, I will report you to HR."

BabyOnBoard90 · 01/11/2022 22:12

"Give me the money for nursery"

Psychgrad · 02/11/2022 07:09

Yes I think I’ll just have to be quite firm. The problem is, I don’t hold much expression in my face, I work in mental health so think I have developed one of those neutral faces/ voices that makes me look unphased by everything.

OP posts:
SadieBarts · 03/11/2022 11:47

I would start snapping at them and say 'why is it any of their concern, maybe I don't want kids, maybe I do and have had several miscarriages, maybe I am trying or maybe I'm infertile', then proceed to say they should mind their own business' - I am 39 and get this all the time, but I am infertile and at the point I don't care if I am rude to people anymore. People need to learn to stop asking these questions.

slug · 03/11/2022 12:27

"If god had wanted me to have children he wouldn't have made me infertile."

Psychgrad · 04/11/2022 09:23

I like these ideas. I do need to get snarkier.

OP posts:
AsIfByMagic123 · 04/11/2022 20:40

No words of wisdom I’m afraid but just wanted to say I really feel for you. This sounds like hell.

Greenlee · 04/11/2022 23:03

I'd be far less polite. Maybe snap in their faces that they shouldn't say things like that to someone who has lost a baby. Let THEM be embarrassed. And if they say they had no idea, just say: that's right, you DON'T know. You never know if somebody can't get pregnant, or even if they have lost a child, so mind your business and butt out.

Mseddy · 05/11/2022 09:42

I'd just say, do you make habit of asking after people's sex lives? Because asking when/why I haven't had children yet is essentially asking intimate deals about DH and I

RascafríaMom · 05/11/2022 10:07

"Those comments are rather transphobic. Have you considered that such conversations with people you don't know well about conception could trigger people's dysphoria about their bodies and their capabilities?"

Or, "Have you had many conversations with young men about their fertility issues and the paternity leave options our employer offers? I am sure, since this information is more taboo, our male coworkers would be grateful for you breaking the taboo and openly discussing penial and testicular dysfunction."

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