The SMC Topic at Work

I work in a fairly small town in the South, with very conservative coworkers and very conservative patients. So when I decided I was definitely going to pursue the SMC path, I told my staff right away. I was a little nervous of what their reaction would be, but I told them straight out: I’d tried to meet a man, and it hadn’t worked, and so starting in 2010 I was going to try to become a mom on my own. I was shocked at the positive response. Honestly, I told them a year in advance because I wanted anyone who was bothered by it to have time to find another job. And instead they were all thrilled for me, and just as anxious as I was for January 2010 to get here.

The interesting thing about being a doctor in the South (and maybe in any small town) is that patients are incredibly interested in my life. When they ask me how I’m doing, they really want to know. Many of them know where my parents live, how many nephews I have, and they all know I’m still not married. And so I even told a few of my older female patients about my plans, and they all responded with, “If I could have done that when I was younger, I would have!”

Now it’s at the point where I’m starting to have to tell patients, because many of them are being scheduled to come back in 4-6 months, when I’m anticipating I’ll be out on maternity leave. I wear a lab coat at the office, so my bump is not as obvious as when I don’t have a coat on, but most of them are now saying, “I was wondering, but didn’t want to ask!” (When you’re a diabetes doctor, patients always pay attention to your waistline!)

A few of my very conservative patients I told before I was showing, because I wanted to let them know before they came in and were surprised. And I discovered that I have to be very careful with the more conservative patients on how I tell them things. I actually had one couple that said, “Well, we have a problem with you getting pregnant outside of marriage, but we are really proud of you for doing the right thing and keeping the baby.” Since then I’ve learned to be very clear when I tell patients that I am very excited to be a mommy, and that this was something I deliberately chose to do.

I emailed my staff a very clear list of how they should respond to questions from patients, because I know they’re going to get some. And the funny thing is, that until today, the only time patients asked any of my staff if I was pregnant was before I’d told anyone that I was! My receptionist came back to my office today with a huge grin on her face and said, “Finally! Someone asked if you were pregnant! Mr. C asked as he was checking out today. And when I told him yes, he said that he didn’t know you were married. So I told him you weren’t, that you had made this baby all by yourself!” That’s something she came up with on her own, and it couldn’t have been more perfect! In fact, I’ve decided that is going to be my standard response from now on if a patients says anything about my marital status.

Here’s what I told my office staff in my email: “At some point, you’ll probably start getting questions from my patients about my pregnancy. You do not have to answer any of them if it makes you uncomfortable, I’m completely fine with you just telling them to ask me. But if you do want to respond, here are a few guidelines. You can tell patients that I’m not married, and I would prefer if you make it clear that this was a choice I made (and not an accident) – a simple ‘No, she decided she’d waited long enough and was ready to have a baby on her own’ will do. Do not answer questions about how I got pregnant, if they really want to know those details, they’ll have to be brave enough to ask me themselves, so just respond with, ‘You’ll have to ask her that question.’”

I’ve often thought about what people would think about me becoming a mom on my own, but I never really thought about the actual process of telling people once I was pregnant until I started to have to do just that. But I hadn’t found anything I was really comfortable with until today – I’m so glad I work with such wonderful people who can come up with great things for me to say! “No, I’m not married, I made this baby all on my own.” It’s just perfect.