BG- I work with a girl (Amanda) who was pregnant up until last month. She went in to pre-term labor and delivered at 24 weeks, and very sadly, lost her baby. She has just now returned to work and is obviously still quite upset. It's a small restaurant, so we all see each other 5-6 times a week and everyone on staff is doing all that we can to be supportive in her time of grief.
BG- I am also pregnant, and didn't tell my boss until about 2 weeks before Amanda lost her baby. The rest of the staff ended up finding out while Amanda was on leave.
BG- The restaurant has had many pregnant workers through the years who have done their job without issue while pregnant, but they have all be exclusively front of house employees. I'm the first back of house employee that's worked while pregnant, and after Amanda's loss, the rest of the staff has watched my like a hawk to make sure I'm not doing any non-doctor approved things. Other Mama's on staff occasionally ask baby related questions.
Think that's all the BG info for this one.
When Amanda first returned I was very worried that she would in some way resent me, or that the baby talk would make her uncomfortable, so I tried my best to keep things quiet out of respect. So I was very surprised when she actually sought me out to ask how things were going, how I was feeling, when I was due etc. We've talked a few times before now, but we were never really friends, just friendly co-workers.
We've sat and talked about the baby she lost, and how she hopes to get pregnant again soon. All in all she seemed much more optimistic than I would have expected, but I still don't go out of my way to talk about baby stuff with her because I still worry I may upset her. But when she asks questions, I don't mind answering and I listen when she wants to talk about her loss.
Now comes the issue.
Recently she's made a lot of comments that, frankly, kind of upset and scare me. I came in quite exhausted from a long night at work and an early morning wake up from my niece and nephew (we babysat over night) and decided to have a cup of coffee to try and shake the sleepy. I go to start a pot and Amanda asks if I want her to start some. I say sure, since I'm admittedly unfamiliar with our coffee machine. I lean on the counter and mention that I haven't had coffee in almost a month, but I need the pick me up that day. Amanda nods and says "Well. You know. You shouldn't have any caffeine. It will make you get a UTI and that can make you go in to pre-term labor like I did. I don't know if that's why it happened, but it might be." I didn't know how to respond, so I nodded and got a glass of water instead, then went to start my shift without coffee, because she'd kind of scared me off it.
Later that day, I went to our break room to get some Tylenol from my purse. Amanda was in there filling our sugar bin. I pop two Tylenol, and Amanda whips around and looks at me. "Was that aspirin?!" "No, it's Tylenol." "Oh, ok. You shouldn't take that either but it's not as bad as Aspirin." she paused and filled the bin up some more. I didn't reply because I was still kind of taken aback. She finished and said "They say you can take Tylenol but I don't think I would if I got pregnant again. I don't think I'd feel safe taking anything because of what happened." She left the room, I still didn't respond.
She's made other small comments, and asked what I consider to be personal questions- do I smoke, do I have sex a lot, do I go to the gym- and then commented that she did, which might be why she lost her baby.
I'm already really nervous about my pregnancy because I've had a miscarriage before. My doctor has urged me to avoid stressing myself out, because it's not good for me or the baby to be all freaked out. I understand (Well. I assume) that Amanda's heart is in the right place, and I appreciate concern...but she's seriously freaking me out by saying these things.
Is there a way that I can politely and gently let her know that she's really stressing me out?