My boss in work said that you choose the kind of pregnancy you want

[Nomoreafterthisone]

This was in relation to a conversation about morning sickness. I am really struggling at the minute with all day nausea and vomiting 4-5 times a day.

I just think silly me for choosing this sickly looking like death surviving on jacobs cream crackers pregnancy when I could have chosen the glowy mother nature eating kale type pregnancy.

Obviously the last paragraph is a joke... I want to vomit on her, see how she feels then. She's had 3 children too! You'd think would be a bit more understanding!

What kind of pregnancy did you choose?

Yep, my boss has been equally thick with my pregnancy also. Actually compared me with his wife saying she managed it just fine. Errr.. as if that's relevant to anything.

For me the most shocking thing about pregnancy and childbirth was the absolute lack of choice

You read books, you go to classes and you think you have agency. And then it takes you how it takes you.

Your boss is a prat.

Under that logic you can choose how well to heal from a broken leg, or what your cancer experience will be like.

Silly us, if we would just put our mind to it, we wouldn’t need the NHS at all!

I didn’t realise I could have saved myself from gestational diabetes, nausea, ventous delivery, episiotomy and post natal depression.

Come to think of it, I must have wished all my menopause symptoms on myself as well.

Pretty sure I didn't choose to have my head in the toilet 24/7 for both pregnancies. I don't know what the hell I was thinking when I was waking up at two am to hurl into a pre-prepared bucket, crying because I was so dehydrated, hungry and sick at the same time. I wouldn't have chosen to need ondansetron all day every day. I'm also pretty convinced I didn't choose to have twins and end up hospitalised.

Who the fuck would 'choose' to have HG, extreme fatigue, massively swollen body parts, piles, varicose veins among other god awful pregnancy related thing?? What a load of shite

This.

and then I had eclampsia and my heart stopped - silly old me

and then I had another and weighed less at the end than the start - in hospital on a drip and then I got eclampsia again

have you called her out on this shit?

Your boss is a smug idiot.

Currently 34 weeks pregnant and not stopped vomiting since the 12 week period. The only difference is its not multiple times a day.

Should make a point of throwing up over her shoes

I presume she's never ever ill then, purely because she 'chooses' not to be?

Yeah my MiL was down a coal mine every day, building a house and juggling small children with 3 full time jobs whilst pregnant so she didn’t understand why I wasn’t glowing and jumping around 😖

I was much more sensible than you OP. I stopped my constant nausea at 14 weeks for all 3 pregnancies. I only kept the exhaustion for remaining weeks. Stupidly, I did grow 3 babies whose head and shoulders were too big for my pelvis though so maybe I wasn't so clever after all!

Some people are just idiots OP and pregnancy really brings them out of the woodwork!

I chose to throw up a lot, a lot. Every single day of 4 pregnancies. For my last one I added pelvic separation which left me with back issues for two decades.

Clearly I didn't get the memo about choice.

Some people are such idiots. I think they just think they have more agency than they do and that people who suffer must be doing something to deserve it. They’re idiots with no empathy.

You get it with giving birth. Some think you end up with a c-section or long painful delivery because you had the wrong attitude or caused it some how. Again idiots.

This sounds like Pregnancy Discrimination from your boss. I'd suggest that you keep a log of everything she says on this topic from now on with dates, times etc., and also make your union rep aware if you have one. (If you can join a union but you're not in it yet, do.)

Some people are such idiots.

^^This as well. How some people manage to function in the world at all, much less become managers, is beyond me.

She sounds like a twat.

A twat who's obviously never experienced nausea/sickness during pregnancy!

I had horrendous pelvic girdle pain and my male boss insisted that if I just did some more exercise I would feel much better. I clearly chose to have a painful pregnancy by being lazy.

Oh, how silly of me! I chose horrific bleeding that nearly killed me, delivery at 23 weeks resulting in my daughter dying at a day old. Gosh, if I'd only known there was a choice.

Your boss is a fucking moron.

Sounds like a boss who is likely to get the company sued one day.

Well I chose to have twins, not eat for 12 weeks, puke at the thought of red meat for the next 4 weeks, burst a blood vessel in my eye and go into labour at 35 weeks causing an emergency C-section. Obviously very selfish of me.

Years before that I had a manager who told every pregnant colleague, department store so lots of staff, that pregnancy is a condition not an illness. There were many smug faces when said manager got pregnant and discovered that morning sickness doesn’t miraculously stop in good time for her working day. Oops.

With my first my DSis, who had never had a moment of pregnancy nausea, informed me that morning sickness was all in my head: I thought I would vomit and so I did. Was all I could do not to vomit on her, tbh.

Wow! Your boss needs to seriously grow up. Sounds very similar to my old boss 😡
So apparently hyperemesis vomiting over 100 times a day and living in a hospital for months and months being pumped with bags of fluid on a daily basis along with 3 different medications and steroids just to keep myself and my baby alive is a choice.
Honestly she's clearly had magical pregnancies that have all been amazing and no losses.
People like this make me so angry. I ended up resigning from my job as my boss was soo awful and unbearable to work for. No HR or anything so I just left.

As others have said keep a log of everything OP. I wish I had in hindsight.

We are a bunch of silly gooses! We really should just get on with it! Mind over matter!

She's as high as it goes, no union, she kept mentioning during my first pregnancy how big I was getting, how I probably won't come back at the end of my mat leave and when I got mildly annoyed at being on hold for over 20 minutes she made a big deal laughing about my pregnancy hormones. I'm starting to think she's a reincarnated white male misogynist from the dark ages.

I'm not coming back at the end of this mat leave. I just need to smile and nod for the next few months. I'm choosing my battles and she's not one of them... I do fantasise about throwing up in her handbag though...

What a smug gobshite she is.

She sounds like an idiot. I ended up getting PGP pretty bad the last 2 months. Was horrible and I felt like certain people at my work didn't believe me 🙄