Angry pregnant woman stories...

[ribbitTheFrog]

Hi, please make me feel better, I got all hormonal and angry pregnant woman this morning .

I'm 35 weeks now, so when hmrc made me wait 30 minutes on the phone, then said they need another month to sort out my tax and that they can't change my code without payslip, letter from employer etc I went a bit berserk over the phone and started ranting about how if I owed them tax they'd hunt me down, but it's fine for them to owe me ££££

Then I got all angry with my work payroll department for messing up my pay.

I'm not normally this emotional and volatile...is anyone else getting all grumpy and ranty?

Alan ... maybe ... But the two times I've been pregnant (both lost early sadly) I was prone to real, unimaginable mood swings and can only think that yes, for some women, hormones etc really do throw them off! My judgement was not totally ok throughout it all and I was lucky to have a kind and caring husband and work team.

I don't claim to be intelligent enough to know what that means for feminism or girl-power. I'd hope there could be room for encompassing some compassion and understanding for women no matter what their job is during those few short months that they're carrying a child ... but I can see your point that everything they do or say could be reduced to "Oh ignore her, she's just crazily pregnant!" (and I'm sorry it happened to you with your sister, that's rubbish)

I think there is a definite difference between using "hormones" to minimise what a pregnant woman is feeling, and appreciating that hormones might be making her feelings a bit more acute and supporting her in that.

Loving the stories by the way!

Evans

I love this thread. I'm starting to worry I shouldn't travel on public transport (35wks) as it can make me so angry!
Last week a woman was coming up the 'down' stairs and she refused to move away from the handrail for me to get past. I was going down and the stairs were so busy I didn't want to step into the middle of the crush. Then she fluttered her hand & hit my bump. I said 'did you just hit me? (overly dramatic) and 'Of course you're more important love!'. No idea where that patronising tone came from. I was livid & walked away pretty quickly.

evans

One memory stands out from when I was around 7 months pg with DC1. H had taken me grocery shopping but for some reason decided to drive me to Sainsbury's rather than Tesco. That trip ended with me wailing in the middle of the fruit & veg section that 'I don't know where anything is and this shop doesn't sell anything I want to buy. I want to go to Tesco!'

He drove me to Tesco.

MrsGently thank you for that. I managed to get over it by dinner time but did have a rant to MIL when we saw her. She was going to give him a a telling off but I said not to worry! I think we both need to put our DH's right on how we feel

When I was pg with dc1, a woman who was visiting the building next door to my place of work parked behind me and blocked me in..,for 3 hours! I missed an appointment and was absolutely furious. She claimed I was able to drive off in front but the space was in front of a brick wall, which she said she hadn't seen. (Cars also parked either side so manoeuvring out wasn't an option. ) she returned the next day with a huge bunch of flowers!

When pregnant with DD2 I threw a full on strop about chinese takeaway we orderer one evening... I had ordered special fried rice and they'd given me egg fried instead... Cue me screaming at dh that I wasn't eating it and would never be ordering any form of takeaway again seen as they clearly dont care enough to check the orders... I then burst into floods of tears and sat saying all I wanted was my tea Not my best moment by any stretch. Normally I would have just shrugged it off and scoffed what I'd got whether it was right or wrong!

"Some compassion and understanding no matter what their job is"

But that's my point. To say that we need more understanding and 'handling' when were pregnant is to give society a reason not to allow women into jobs where logical reasoning is always imperative such as the military/surgeon and so on.

Alan - maybe, but then what do you do with all the people who (like me) couldn't have predicted hormonal attacks? Just say "Yes, she snapped and burst into tears, ignore her, apparently she does that sometimes for no reason whatsoever"? I'd rather my manager knew (and thank goodness she did) that it was hormonal, because it was. I can't even remember what it was, I think someone hadn't done a spreadsheet, it was that stupid.

I guess in my ideal world we'd all accept that some (not all) women might do a terrific calm job 99% of the time, with the potential for out-of-the-ordinary emotional outbursts for a very few months of their career ... which would be understood by supportive colleagues around them and wouldn't hamper their jobs or long term careers. I don't see how that's patronising or restricting, just an acknowledgement of a biological condition for some women.

But I totally see your point too and you're probably right in the real world!

So if, as you believe, some pregnant women are prone to irrational acts, then if you were holding interviews for the job of the person who makes life and death decisions, such as military tactics and drone employment, would you hire a woman of child bearing age while holding the belief that if she became pregnant she would then become a liability due to her hormones? How would you manage that belief and the potential for her to make poor snap decisions fuelled by her pregnancy hormones? How would you feel if you knew your pilot/brain surgeon was pregnant?

As for people reporting uncharacteristic displays of frustration, they happen all the time to non pregnant women and men. It's just that when it is a woman we fall into the 'it's her hormones' which I believe is harmful to women and a notion that is and can be used to keep women out of the roles that are seen as 'jobs for the boys'.

I'm definitely more hormonal at times while pg than not, and I think it's helpful for me and for those around me to know that (particularly DH). However I'm aware at the time of what's normal anger and what's hormonal anger, and I think if a woman is a successful surgeon/military tactician/etc she would know this too and be able to differentiate while making decisions. I don't think she becomes a "liability"