"Friends"

I have this one work "friend" (let's call her V) who has a 1 year old and who can't make it through a conversation without starting at least half of her sentences with one of the following phrases: "Since I became a mom...." or "Ever since I got pregnant" or "Now that I have a kid" or "When I was pregnant" or "after I had [kid's name]." It's like every topic has to be analyzed, out loud, from the perspective of V when she was pregnant and V since she was pregnant and V now that she's not pregnant. EVERY topic. V seems to have no opinions on anything other than how it relates to her pregnancy.

And she is the person IRL that knows the most about my situation, other than DH. She knows when I go for blood draws. She knows what my beta levels are. She knows what my doctors are saying. She knows about my frustrations and my questions and GTD, I've confided all of this in her. The only thing she doesn't know is that The Wait is "only" six months - I told her a year.

It'll be holier-than-thou comments too. Like "Now that I'm a mom, I'm all about comfortable clothes." First of all, could she not say, "I like comfortable clothes?" Period? Is she pointing out that she is less materialistic now that she has other priorities? Is she fishing for a compliment: "Oh well V, that's understandable. You have much more important things to focus your attention and money on than how you look, now that you have a kid, unlike childless me who has nothing better to do all day than browse the shoe & handbag sections of Nordstr@m.com." And worse is when she's complaining about her kid - once, in a discussion about layoffs at work and how worried we all were that we would be next, she said to me: "at least you don't have a kid to feed."

And every time we hear of someone getting laid off who has a kid or see something on TV about kids she can't resist inserting "I just can't stop thinking about the kids. Being a mom, I just....that would be so awful." As if only she can understand someone else's misery and as if being laid off only matters if you have kids.

Now, I understand that a child infiltrates every aspect of one's life, including the trivial topics that comprise our conversations. And I can understand that pregnancy and birth and having a baby are all experiences so grand that once one goes through them, all things are seen through a different lens. But the verbal reminders are SO incessant and consistent and what is really unbelievable about it all is that she knows exactly what I'm going through and does it anyway.

It's not so much the reminders of what I lost as the insensitivity the comments represent. And sometimes the comments are blatantly indulgent. Totally unnecessary to what she's about to say or the topic of conversation. "Ever since I had [the baby]....I really don't care for thai food all that much, too greasy." "Now that I'm a mom....I find it really irritating when work is slow."

This post was precipitated by a particular incident that happened today - the straw that broke the camel's back. She almost sent the tears, that always seem to be sitting just behind my eyelids these days, over the edge. The dam almost broke. At a client meeting. It was she and I and our client and, trying to make small talk, I mentioned how annoyed I was that, just as I'm trying to quit caffeine, the world seems to have turned against me - they only served diet coke at the meeting, no diet seven up! At every other meeting I've been to in this building they provide both. Except this week. When I really am trying to quit.
So V pipes up - "I know!," and then she proceeds to tell the following story to our client: "I used to get so annoyed when I was pregnant because at our meetings the men in our department would always take the diet seven up and there would be only caffinated soda left for me, [other new-mom co-worker], and [third new-mom co-worker],...when we were all pregnant!" I should mention here for readers who don't follow the blog that I have two female co-workers other than V and both are currently on maternity leave. They got pg at the same time and I got pregnant about halfway through their pregnancies.

I have never as visceral a reaction to a mere comment as I did to this one. She was talking about something that had included me too. And it was a reminder that (a) ALL the other girls in our group went through uneventful, healthy pregnancies, and (b) I wasn't included in the story (even though I was having the same gripes about the diet seven up at the time) because my pregnancy never really came to fruition. Mine didn't count. The fact that she told the story in the first place was rude, and then the fact that she named all of the other female co-workers in our group was the icing. V wasn't even pg at the same time as the other two. She could have just explained it from her experience and that would have been bad enough. But she had to mention our other co-workers, our friends, like they were all one big happy exclusive group.

She came to talk to me after the meeting and I actually expected an apology, but didn't get one. Not even close. I think I was visibly upset. I could barely look at her. It's sad because prior to this point she's actually been a huge source of support - checking in on me and such...although now that I think about it, she's kind of nosy and probably only kept asking about my beta updates so she could be filled in on the drama and all the bad news that has befallen me.

So I'm angry because I trusted her and she's hurt me and I'm angry because I never wanted to be the kind of person you had to be careful around. I don't want to be the person that you can't talk about X with because I'm too sensitive. And I don't think it's the topic here as much as the blatant disregard and disrespect. If she wasn't aware of my situation, I wouldn't have blamed her in the least. I wouldn't have been as hurt. It's the fact that she is aware of my situation, in all it's gory detail. And says these things anyway.