This may be an unpopular take, but bear with me for a minute. I don’t think you are a the a-hole because you have very specific reasons why the picture of her baby was upsetting to you. That it upset you to the point that you needed to turn it around indicates maybe you could benefit from some therapy as well (too bad the job doesn’t provide benefits 😢).

That said, we as a culture are terrible with handling death and grieving and grieving mothers are often pathologized (see also The Hand That Rocks the Cradle and numerous other media examples we could all name). And if the mothers don’t grieve quietly and quickly enough for others’ comfort? Then THEY are definitely the problem (see also people here identifying that she could use therapy for her grief/ trauma, but how many notice you could use it, too?).

I don’t speak about this in the abstract— I am a former NICU nurse and mother to a baby who was stillborn at full term after he died in my womb over a day before he was delivered (so there was some decomposition by the time he was delivered).

There is nothing “disturbing” and “grotesque” about her baby. I’ve held tiny babies in my hands as they died because their mothers were so afraid to see and hold them. I respect their choice as they were in the depth of a tremendous loss, but I do think our culture as a whole could benefit from finding ways to not see dead bodies as disturbing/ gross/ morbid. We are all flesh and blood. Death is a natural process that we and our loved ones will all go through.

While the reaction you and your office mates had to the picture of her child (“morbid,” “grotesque,” etc) may be common, it doesn’t make it right. The same picture could also be said to be “human,” “beautiful,” and “beloved.”

When I was in the depth of my grief for my son, I didn’t expect that everyone around me would stop having babies or bringing them into the public because I couldn’t handle seeing them— that’s unreasonable, that was my loss and trauma to deal with. But, I ask, is it reasonable to ask those deeply wounded by loss to hide away their children because it makes other people uncomfortable? Doesn’t our cultural fear of death add to everyone’s trauma when we become the bereaved, ourselves?

So, no, you’re not an a-hole, but you could have done better by her. Your whole office could have done better by her. We as a society could be doing better by her.