I love Target, and therefore I go to Target. My shopper-savvy-sister-in-law alerted me to a great deal on cribs there, so I went to check the scene. Whilst browsing amongst the not entirely satisfactory boys baby bedding I was approached by a random woman:"Are there any Target employees working today?" she says sarcastically.
"Most likely," I reply "though I haven't been looking for one."
"Are you pregnant?" she asks.
I guess by this point I'm pretty obviously pregnant, so I'm not offended by the question and reply "Yes, I am."
"Oh." she says. "I just saw you looking at the baby stuff. My daughter's friend was pregnant. Yeah, she carried all the way thru the pregnancy, everything was just hunky-dory and then she delivered and the baby just up and died, right there in the delivery room."
I had heard that people would do this sort of thing to me, but I secretly believed that no one would be so socially unaware and unfeeling as to actually do it. I stared for a moment, I could tell my face was turning red in surprised and shocked stupor and then I replied: "I don't think that's the kind of thing you tell random pregnant ladies."
"Well I'm just saying that that's how it is sometimes!" She defensively snaps, "I mean, the baby just turned blue as a corpse right there and just died."
"Well I'm very sorry to hear that, but I don't think you should go out of your way to tell pregnant strangers about it anymore." I start edging away.
She continued to talk to me, completely stopped in the middle of the aisle, like she wasn't finished with our conversation, going on complaining about Target's customer service. I however called out "have a nice day" over her chatter and walked away. It was awkward, and I felt like a bit of a punk, but at the same time, I just didn't feel like she had warranted a sympathetic listener out of me at that point.
So there you have it. My first random stranger "are you pregnant?"query ended with tidings of the possibility that my baby could die in the delivery room. I am so glad I didn't mention that I was having twins, who knows what would have happened then.
Luckily for her I wasn't too upset by it. I was more angry that she felt it socially acceptable to do something like that. I mean, you never know what people have been through. What if I had already lost a child in a similar manner? Anyway. When I told my friend Al about it she said: "You should have replied 'yeah, i knew a lady walking around in Target talking to strangers, and then she died."
9 comments:
Wow, people are definitely crazy!
That happened to me (Scott). Not someone noticing I was pregnant, but a month or so ago, I mentioned my wife was due any day, and this lady I was working with immediately replies, "I had two miscarriages." What do you say to that?
Crack me up! That's horrible. But I wish I were as quick as Al and could come up with something like that, right off the bat...
I am so grateful no one ever said anything like that to me! I don't know what I'd do...I like Al's response, in theory... So you're showing now?
She probably didn't mean to offend you, on the contrary she was just trying to find a connection- a lousy connection, granted- but a connection nonetheless. She saw that you were pregnant, tried to think of the experiences she has with pregnancy, and out it came- verbal ejaculation. Unfortunately, she doesn't have much of a filtering process- but, we all have faults. She was just trying to relate without thinking of the emotional consequences inherently embedded in the event- I know, because I do that more than I should. So if it happens in the future, try not to get offended: although, I do realize it's a very touchy area.
Unfortunately, experiences such as those do happen, and they require empathy from a listener. That's how I feel about it- maybe I'll feel different when I am pregnant.
Any names yet?
I am SO sorry! I HATE it when people did that to me when I was pregnant. And you have TWO babies to worry about now.
Have any weird dreams yet? I dreamt that Aidan crawled off the back of the lobster boat in Maine and I woke up before I could save him. THAT sucked.
The fact that she got so defensive, I'm thinking she probably won't do something like that again. Thank you for saying something to her, I don't know WHAT I would have said.
yeah...people definetly don't think before they say things to pregnant women. they are soooo insensitive! stuff like that happened to me all the time. i have a whole list of things. i'm so glad you said something to her. i always wanted too but never had the guts to.
Katie, I think you're totally right. I mean, I do the same thing with people all the time -- find similar experiences to relate. However that is where social awareness comes in I think. She definitely had 'filter issues'. Some things you think to yourself and then let it go. I hope, like Melissa and Kelly implied, that my reaction will lead her into the realization that she might need to get that filter checked. I just didn't want her out plaguing other poor women. If I could tell she needed solace about the baby that died I might have been able to provide it, but her ability to move on to complaining about Target workers so quickly left me feeling like she was more after someone to complain to than someone to find solace in.
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