Help me be a smart ass
Jan 18, 2016 18:43:44 GMT -5
Post by motownthrowdown on Jan 18, 2016 18:43:44 GMT -5
I'm going back to working in my office three days a week after pretty much five months of working from home. Before that, I was physically present but checked out mentally because my daughter was in the nicu for three months.
Everyone knows that that she was born very early. Some people didn't even know I was pregnant when they announced her birth. On the very, very rare times I have gone in to the office (maybe four times), I have been pelted with questions and well wishes. I'm ok with the questions, I love well wishes, and I'm ok with people asking about her hydrocephalus (although not many people actually know about that, since I haven't really been in the office and I'm not friends on Facebook with most of them).
The thing that I cannot and will not put up with is people (mostly the older ladies) making comments about things we have done or will do differently because she is a preemie and/or because of her hydro. For example, one of them ALWAYS jokes about why didn't I bring her with me to the office. The nicu/preemie mom in me physically recoils at the thought (we share a cubicle wall, so she can't see me, but I've actually cringed back). The mental image I get with this statement is me being a human shield so that not even the idea can touch my daughter. It's a public office, lots of contact with the general public. This same woman was telling me that she's "so small" because we "only" give her 4 or 5 ounces of milk at a time. It's BM, not formula, which is what she fed her own kid, also a smaller kid at birth. He weighed like five pounds and she's always telling me not to worry because her (full term, non-hydro) son is fine now and he "only" weighed five pounds. That is two and a half times what my daughter weighed. I have nothing against formula, but she doesn't understand that the calorie content of BM changes and said that if her DIL (currently KU) tries to only give her kid 4oz bottles, she's going to sneak in nurser bottles of formula and give those to the baby whenever she sees it.
Anyway, wtf can I say to some of these remarks? I'm willing to be nice for a little while and calmly explain why we do things, but I'm not going to be able to put up with it and I don't think I should have to.
Thanks for reading. Sorry it's so long.
Everyone knows that that she was born very early. Some people didn't even know I was pregnant when they announced her birth. On the very, very rare times I have gone in to the office (maybe four times), I have been pelted with questions and well wishes. I'm ok with the questions, I love well wishes, and I'm ok with people asking about her hydrocephalus (although not many people actually know about that, since I haven't really been in the office and I'm not friends on Facebook with most of them).
The thing that I cannot and will not put up with is people (mostly the older ladies) making comments about things we have done or will do differently because she is a preemie and/or because of her hydro. For example, one of them ALWAYS jokes about why didn't I bring her with me to the office. The nicu/preemie mom in me physically recoils at the thought (we share a cubicle wall, so she can't see me, but I've actually cringed back). The mental image I get with this statement is me being a human shield so that not even the idea can touch my daughter. It's a public office, lots of contact with the general public. This same woman was telling me that she's "so small" because we "only" give her 4 or 5 ounces of milk at a time. It's BM, not formula, which is what she fed her own kid, also a smaller kid at birth. He weighed like five pounds and she's always telling me not to worry because her (full term, non-hydro) son is fine now and he "only" weighed five pounds. That is two and a half times what my daughter weighed. I have nothing against formula, but she doesn't understand that the calorie content of BM changes and said that if her DIL (currently KU) tries to only give her kid 4oz bottles, she's going to sneak in nurser bottles of formula and give those to the baby whenever she sees it.
Anyway, wtf can I say to some of these remarks? I'm willing to be nice for a little while and calmly explain why we do things, but I'm not going to be able to put up with it and I don't think I should have to.
Thanks for reading. Sorry it's so long.
when I came back after my "maternity leave" (3 weeks post c section), I was getting questions from people I'd never met before. It's a smallish building and I visit several different departments to fulfill my job duties, so lots of people see me but we don't actually talk. I got bombarded by people asking about her because my office had posted a birth announcement in our break room right around the time we have a building wide fundraiser, so TONS of people saw "one pound fourteen ounces" as the weight. 
