How to open MS Word document programmatically without calling Document_Open macro

I am trying to use Office Automation to open a Word document. The problem is, I would like to open it without calling the Document_Open macro. Is there a way to do this?

The relevant line below is wordApp.Documents.Open ()

Imports Microsoft.Office.Interop

Public Class WordFunctions
  Public Shared Function ConvertToDoc(ByVal file As String) As Boolean
    Dim wordDoc As Word.Document
    Dim wordApp As Word.Application

    Try
        wordApp = CreateObject("Word.Application", "")
    Catch ex As Exception
        Return False
    End Try

    Try
        wordApp.Caption = "Automated Word Instance"
        wordApp.DisplayAlerts = Word.WdAlertLevel.wdAlertsNone
        wordDoc = wordApp.Documents.Open(FileName:=file, Visible:=False, ConfirmConversions:=False)

        wordDoc.SaveAs(FileName:=file + ".doc", FileFormat:=Word.WdSaveFormat.wdFormatDocument)
        wordDoc.Activate()
        wordDoc.Close()
        Return True
    Catch ex As Exception
        Return False
    Finally
        wordApp.Quit(SaveChanges:=False)
    End Try
  End Function
End Class