you WHAT?! stupid/thoughtless comments

[StickThemWithThePointyEnd]

People really don't know when to stop talking when faced with a heavily pregnant woman..
I have severe SPD, making me pretty much immobile. DH went out for a runabout at the park with some mates today and came back saying "today I am aching more than you could possibly be hurting.."

Random woman I know: "I take it you haven't had the baby yet, then?" (I'm 39+3 and visibly pregnant)

MIL, on the phone: "I thought you were calling me to tell me that the baby has started" (only a couple of hours after I told her that we were going to keep things quiet and low key)

"any signs yet?/still preggers?/bump still here?/have you had the baby yet?" from about a million people every day, even after I reassured everyone repeatedly that I promise to let them know when I have given birth. When I I say that, I get "but you might be too busy to let me know". yes, then I would be too busy to reply to your constant stream of texts, too.

"are you sure you're due already, you're tiny!" after 3 months of "oh god, you're huge!"

and of course all the horror stories about labour and birth and having babies... no wonder I'm constantly pissed off and willing to kill someone at the moment...

/rant

Statistically, it seems unlikely that the recipients of the crappy remarks have never themselves uttered such a remark. perhapss what we should all take away from this thread is the need to be careful what we say to people at such a sensitive point in their lives.

I was about eight months pg and we'd gone visiting relatives. It was my 4th and I was surprisingly neat in the bump dept. I happened to be wearing a black and white stripey top and the first response from my mil was, 'And what have you come as today? A giant bee? Ho! Ho!' She has always been so tactlessly hurtful.

' I think you must be having a boy because in my country we say if your face get ugly then you have boy' - a particularly tactful colleague when I was pregnant with DS (so he was right, actually)

'Well, we didn't have SPD in my day, we just had to get on with things really' - my mother - yes, my own beloved mother, meant I am sure in a supportive way but taken in a I-am-pregnant-and-you-can-only-say-incredibly-nice-things-to-me-and-I-will-probably-cry-anyway sort of way.

'Not long to go now,eh!' - almost everyone at work over the last fortnight.

8 weeks actually - you think this is big? Wait until June and I'll show you big!

FIL looking at a picture of me with newborn having just given birth "you're looking a bit peaky there" was one of the reasons I insisted on full makeup before I would have my photo taken with #2!

Hubby yesterday watching me get dressed (currently 10 weeks pg with #3) - laughs, wow that bra is massive - are you sure it's the right size? Yeah, like you're the expert all of a sudden! That really started my day in a positive way.

It seems to be men for me who make the insensitive comments. They just have no idea! Oh, and MIL of course!

Appart from the "not long now!" comment - I'm 18 weeks pg! (okay it's twins but that's not the point), the best comment I've had was from the gynacologist who was checking babies were okay after a bleed. His question: "And what contraception are you using?" Hmmmm, I looked at dh for help as I had no clue how to approach answering him. I ended up saying: "Well, errrr, none. I'm pg with twins and the pg was planned so we were ttc - we felt contraception would get in the way!" He accepted that and didn't bat an eyelid. We were baffled.

'Was it planned' really gets my back up. (pg with no3)
'oooh it's a bit soon' makes me want to lash out (ds is 14 months, I'm due oct)
'Do you know the sex?' in response to me having to have a scan due to bleeding. (as it happens we did get told but want it to be a secret this time)
'you aren't going to ruin things by find out the sex?'
'why you having 3 children, it's a terrible number to have' my brother-father of 3!!!

Whilst in hospital, on a drip for dehydration, not keeping a thing down, no real food intake for days, with huge amount of ketones in wee and having to have my anti sickness meds intravenaeously - second spell in hospital in 3 weeks - a 12 year old gynae trainee doc told me to try ginger biscuits.

F* OFF!

Well, I'm only 8 weeks plus 5 so I was reading this thinking "thank goodness no one has said anything like that to me yet". (I am very emotional at the moment and cry at the teenniest thing)

However...
This morning, at work - 1st day back since my holiday last week.(I told my boss almost as soon as I knew because of the nature of my job.)

Boss: "Oh hello, you look so well, positively glowing, mind you your only something ridiculous like 6 weeks aren't you?

Me "Well actually I'm nearly 9 weeks"

Boss: "Oh that's much better. Much more interesting."

I mean, WTF is that supposed to mean?

Not sure why I'm suprised - this is the woman who, on me telling her my news said "Now, you are going to carry on with slimming world aren't you? You only really want to put on the baby weight!" GRRRRRRRRR

Maybe I'm just being over sensitive. I'm sure there's worse to come.

DrSeuss I am guilty as charge of the "is it here yet?" comment but honestly was only trying to be nice ;)

And I can say that I would never tell anyone they are ugly/unattractive/fat if they are pregnant (even if I thought it......) I'm sorry but that is just rude :( I am 15 weeks and seriously it bugs me how people feel they can ALREADY comment on my tummy :(

DP and I got engaged a month and a half before I got pregnant and told people a month before I found out I was pregnant. When I told a now ex friend and very self centered and thoughtless person, she said "oh so now it all makes sense, I was wondering why you and MrLDN had decided to get married!"

So even though I couldn't have possibly been pregnant when we got engaged and announced it, and had stated that I was only a couple weeks along did not factor into her thought process before saying that.

Well I know I probably said a few insensitive things along the way. I mean, until you get the pg hormones and all the rest of it, some things you just don't realise are going to be taken as hurtful!

I used to work with a girl who had polyhydramnios - she blew up so quickly that we were sure she was having twins! She got lots of "humorous" comments from the bunch of thoughtless just-out-of-Uni trainees that we all were about having twins, being further along than she looked, having a whopper in there etc. I'm not sure at what point they decided it was polyhydramnios but she looked about ready to drop from about 20w onwards, poor girl!

Another friend did fall pg accidentally - 3m prior to her wedding - so she wasn't bothered by the "was it planned?" questions because the answer was "no!"

Certainly I don't make any such comments now though.

Oh, I'd completely forgotten all the crap said when I had hyperemises (sp) with DS1 & 2.

'It's just morning sickness, we all get it'
'You should be eating more'
'You should be eating (fill in as appropriate)
'why don't you try to stop being sick/get up etc?'
'At least you know everything's ok/ it's a good sign'
(Actually I had it when i MMc'd as well)

This after hitting about 5 1/2 stone.

According to my Dr I'm apparently anything from 5 - 8 weeks (I'm pretty sure I'm about 5) Already got a couple of close friends telling me how much labour hurts. Really? Ya don't think? I never knew that, break out the condoms!

It irritates the hell out of me because every mother I know would go through the pain of labour again for their child, how many women go on to have a second or third?!

My sister constantly tells me that pregnancy is the worst thing that could ever happen to a woman. I feel so reassured.

My biggest bug bear is the "Are you pregnant?" question. How do you answer that, you either lie and say no because it's too early and you aren't telling people or you go bright red and say yes but it's too early for you to be telling people. Why ask? If I want you to know, I'd have told you, if you suspect then there may be a good reason why I've not made the announcement yet you nosey soandso!

:D

when I was in the first trimester of DS1 I would wake up in the middle of the night STARVING, and DH would get me a banana to eat and then we would go back to bed. It was quite sweet. Told MIL and she said "we'll see how long THAT lasts for", like I was being really mean to her poor boy!

Also have had the "are you expecting twins?", "Was it planned?" ones....

And an estate agent... I viewed a property at 6 months, and everytime she calls me after that she opens with "Are you still pregnant?" oh f*ck off! (I am 8 months now)

Am I the only pregnant woman (I'm currently 8 months) who genuinely isn't bothered by all the comments? People are only making conversation surely? OK, some of it is inane or thoughtless but really, I am not that bothered by them.

Pirate, I know what you mean but part of the problem for me isnt so much what is said, although if I am in a mood then that can be enough :o ITs the fact that the person saying it is the tenth person that day to pass comment. I hate the fact that some people seem to think that a pg woman is public property and a license to say anything they like, but add insult to injury by being the fiftieth person to ask about your sex life is a step too far for many women I think!

Had to see my manager due to 4 episodes of sickness in 6months (the joys of school age children bringing home bugs & working with ill people)

Thought whilst I was there I would announce pg, she had the cheek to ask me if any of my sickness was due to trying for a baby - no actually we only started trying the month I concieved

When I announced my due date as being at the end of August a 'friend' looked really concerned and said 'That means he will be the youngest in his year at school' and then looking a bit brighter said 'Oh actually, don't worry, I DO know a FEW people who have birthdays in August who have jobs'. WTF???

I really didn't mind if people said I was huge - although I really wasn't. When I left work at 8mths pregnant, all the parents had to double check it was me that was up the duff, because a couple of the other members of staff had non-baby related bellies of the same size!

Most people were really nice, and said positive things about how gorgeous I looked - I didn't really! But it was lovely at the time, so I always try and say something positive whenever I meet up with PG friends.

My worst comments came from medical staff. My MW on finding out I was 21 said "if you were my daughter I'd be ashamed of you!" despite the fact I was living with a long term partner, we both had jobs etc, so I'm not sure what there was to be ashamed about

From ultrasound tech: "Your bump is really much too small, you will have to extra scans to make sure you're not stunting the growth of your baby."
Despite all growth measurements (including bump size!) being totally average. (The same MW from above told her to fuck off, more or less, and redeemed herself, baby was bigger than average BTW)

When I arrived at the hospital, waters had broken an hour before, and I immediately started having contractions at 3min intervals, no build up. "The team think you can't possibly be in proper labour yet, go home and have sex to speed things up!"
She was really nice and let us stay thankfully, apart from anything else our car was in the shop and we'd had to get a ride to the hospital in the middle of the night so wouldn't have been able to go home. I had DD only a few hours later, so clearly they were wrong also!

LaWeasel [bushock] at MW "being ashamed"!!! What a frickin' cheek.

I found out later she was notorious for saying stuff like that, and I was one of her last pregnancies before retirement, so I guess she just didn't care...

I'm in a new area for baby number 2, so will be interesting to see if I have so many slightly bonkers medical staff.

My boss, after asking me what I was going to do about materniity leave and me talking about time off, then said: 'Well hold your horses, just concentrate on the birth first!' But you friggin asked me!

Considering most of the comments above, it really amazes me that humankind has survived as long as it has. Really, you'd think most of it would have died out from sheer stupidity... [bugrin]

my MIL kept telling me she was going to stand next to me as I was so big it made her feel thin....

Lots of your massive

All I've had so far is "But October's a terrible month to have a baby!"

Will admit to the "You're so big!" one with a friend of mine, but in my defense I hadn't seen her for a year and no one had told me she was pregnant again until five minutes before she walked through the door. She didn't seem particularly offended but her cynical laugh did make aware of saying the same thing to anyone else ever again!