AITA for Telling My Coworker to Stop Bringing Up Her Pregnancy Loss?

A 4-year employee (OP) works with a coworker who has had multiple miscarriages. The coworker frequently announces her pregnancies early, shares extensive details about her condition, and takes extended time off after miscarriages.

OP understands the pain but feels overwhelmed by the constant emotional updates. After struggling with maintaining professionalism, OP told the coworker to stop bringing up her pregnancies and losses at work. Now, OP is wondering if they were too harsh. read the original story below…

‘AITA for Telling My Coworker to Stop Bringing Up Her Pregnancy Loss?’

I’ve worked with my coworker for almost four years, and while I try to keep things professional, it’s been difficult due to her behavior. In general, she’s not the best coworker—she doesn’t always pull her weight, and she tends to play the victim.

She has personal issues with eating disorders and shares way too many details about her unhealthy lifestyle with the team. One thing that has become particularly challenging is how she handles her pregnancies.

Unfortunately, she’s had multiple miscarriages (I believe five), and while I can’t imagine the pain she’s gone through, I’m starting to feel frustrated with how she handles it at work.

Each time she finds out she’s pregnant, she makes a huge announcement to the office—talking about her due date, sharing every little detail, and making sure everyone knows about her 40 weeks of appointments.

She also suffers from severe morning sickness, which she makes sure everyone knows about, announcing it multiple times a day when she’s sick and sometimes leaving a mess in the bathroom.

When she has a miscarriage, she makes another big announcement and then takes off work for weeks to recover. While I understand that miscarriage is heartbreaking, it’s starting to feel like a constant emotional rollercoaster.

She knows about her history with pregnancy loss, so I don’t understand why she shares the news so early each time if she knows there’s a risk. It’s become a huge distraction at work, and while I want to be empathetic, it’s becoming hard to handle the emotional burden that comes with her constant updates.

Recently, I finally told her that I needed her to stop bringing it up at work. I know it sounds harsh, but I’m genuinely struggling with maintaining my professionalism and emotional boundaries.

So now I’m wondering: AITA for telling my coworker to stop sharing the details of her pregnancies and losses at work?

Here’s what Redditors had to say:

Illustrious-Unit-636 −  NTA Did you ever think she’s making it up.. maybe she’s not pregnant, just likes attention

justfollowyoureyes −  NTA but I’d mention it to HR, express your concerns in private, and let them take it from there. They can check in with her and share helpful resources. And as fucked up as it sounds, I wonder if there’s Munchausen going on here…

CheckIntelligent7828 −  NTA for feeling it, but yes if you said it to her. I’ve lost 6 pregnancies, so I’m probably living in the city she’s heading towards.. It never gets less devastating. There is *never* a feeling of, “Oh, this again.”

There is an ever increasing feeling of failure. Of frustration. Of fear. You mourn each like it were the first, and then get to mourn them all together, too.Why is she telling all of you? I do not know.

She’s getting something from it, probably some feeling of excitement initially and consolation after? IDK. But, you can and should remove yourself from those conversations.

If she ever asks, give some partial truth, “I know this is harder for you than anyone else, but I’m o**rwhelmed by all of the talk of loss. I need to separate myself to be able to work.” Blood clotting issues cause a lot of repeated early pregnancy loss, I hope her Drs are checking for that.

ArtShapiro −  NTA You have every right to be irritated by an insufferable d**ma queen. She is a co-worker, not a friend, and all this blather is inappropriate for the office environment.

FloridianPhilosopher −  Probably shouldn’t say anything to her yourself but you’re NTA. I’ve had two coworkers over the years that would constantly trauma d**p all of their emotional baggage from their life like I was their therapist and it gets to be too much.

I got to the point where I would just very obviously tune them out and barely acknowledge that they are speaking and they would just keep going and going. I’m typically very polite and it takes a lot for me to get to where I could even do that.

Protect your mental health but don’t be hasty and say something dumb to the wrong person and get yourself fired. Company could be on fairly sketchy ground with discrimination if this isn’t handled the right way. If you don’t have a trusted manager or hr person to talk to, you might just have to try my method. Goodluck.

Puzzleheaded-Rip8887 −  You are not the AH here. I try to keep my personal life and work life separate, and I get annoyed at coworkers who share every detail of their personal life at work. If I were in your shoes, I would be annoyed too. I would keep my distance away from this coworker.

jvc1011 −  So… you’re asking if you’re TA for having feelings about this? Feelings never make a person TA. Actions do.

gggggrrrrrrrrr −  I’m gonna go with ESH if you’ve actually told her this. Yes, she sounds like an annoying person to work with in general. But if she’s getting severe morning sickness right away, it’s not her duty to hide it just so you don’t have to think about messy things like miscarriage.

You’re essentially telling her you want her to somehow discretely sprint to the bathroom to puke multiple times a day without anyone finding out and then come into work and put on a mask while emotionally and physically recovering from a traumatic event.

That sounds about as self-centered and rude as her taking up everyone’s time in the office to discuss Christmas party plans.

rowdyfreebooter −  NTA but if she has had so many pregnancy losses she is most probably celebrating each to validate to herself that she has a chance this time.

I did ask a woman when she announced that she was pregnant at 6 weeks why so early for the announcement and she said that she had miscarried previously but as she had not told anyone didn’t feel that she could mourn and have people understand as it was so early on,

but once she had announced it the baby would be celebrated and she would be able to mourn openly and have support. Thankfully everything went smoothly and a happy healthy baby arrived.

Everyone is different in how they handle thing. Her announcing her pregnancies and losses could also be triggering for other workers that have gone through the same but suffered in silence.

Was OP in the wrong for asking their coworker to stop discussing such personal matters at work? Is it fair to set emotional boundaries, or should OP have been more empathetic? What do you think? Share your thoughts below!