I was out in the park one day taking a walk with my newborn baby when I got an email from my boss: "Jennifer, can you join a Zoom call tomorrow?" I knew exactly what this meant. Two years ago, while on maternity leave for my firstborn, I lost my job when my company cut my position as a cost-saving measure — and here it was happening again.
I was laid off during the pandemic after having my first child
My field has always been prone to layoffs. I work in social media, and before I started a family, I'd already been laid off once during a change in management. So the possibility of losing my job is never too far from my mind.
But when I had my first child in summer of 2020, layoffs were happening everywhere. The pandemic hit when I was six months pregnant, and my company tried a bunch of the tactics other businesses were doing at the time to save themselves during that terrible time period — furloughing employees and cutting pay. They reduced my pay 10%, which is obviously nothing to sneeze at but felt liveable at the time.
I took 14 weeks of parental leave at that rate, and then another four weeks at an even lower percentage of my pay. In the final days before I returned to work in the fall of 2020, my boss texted me one morning to ask if we could talk. It was weird, but given the upheaval at the time, I figured he wanted to discuss some corporate messaging before I returned, or just get me up-to-date before work resumed. But when I picked up the phone, he said, "I have HR on the phone with me."
As soon as he said that, I just stayed silent. I was in shock, but I started immediately crunching numbers in my head. I was the breadwinner of the family, and my husband and new baby were on my health insurance, the coverage of which would terminate at the end of the month. I could stay on it for a bit thanks to COBRA, but it would cost a boatload. Some accessible, short-term savings would only cover our rent and basic expenses for a few months.
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I had to scramble to find another job
I took the day to panic and cry, but from there I sprung into action really quickly, reaching out to all of my professional contacts to let them know I was looking for freelance work. I got some quick gigs to help us stay afloat and was lucky enough to get another full-time job within a few months.
I did consider legal recourse. I reached out to an old friend who's an employment attorney. He helped me out in an unofficial capacity because he thought I might have a case, but he told me that pregnancy discrimination is really hard to prove. You can lay someone off or fire them while they're pregnant or postpartum, you just can't do so because they're pregnant or postpartum, and the company was clearly having financial struggles at the time and later declared bankruptcy.
My friend eventually kind of gave up, and so did I; I had a new job, and my husband and I were planning our next baby. We just didn't have the capacity to keep fighting the company in the hopes of getting another month's severance.
I had a bad feeling the second time I got pregnant
My second child was due in the fall of 2022. By then, our expenses were higher — we had a larger apartment to fit two kids, plus the cost of day care for my oldest — and I was making about 15% less than I had at my prior job. We were saving as best we could, but there wasn't as much left for emergencies. My industry didn't feel quite as volatile as it had in 2020, but in my ninth month of pregnancy, there was a management change and my team merged with another. I met virtually with my new boss, who lived in another city, to express my concern that I'd be taking leave during this sensitive time.
I shared that I'd been laid off on maternity leave before, and that I had a bad feeling about how the situation was shaping up. My boss was very reassuring, saying that the timing was just a coincidence. I was glad I had the conversation and expressed my concerns, and there wasn't much else I could do; I had a baby coming in a few weeks. So I gave birth and went on leave.
With my second child, I struggled a bit with postpartum depression, though it wasn't officially diagnosed and I wasn't treated for it. So I was really looking forward to going back to work, especially to a job that was familiar.
It felt even worse to get fired again
The circumstances wound up being eerily similar. About a week before I was scheduled to return to work, I was out on that aforementioned walk when my boss emailed asking me to join a Zoom call the next day. I called my husband and my mom in a panic, just crying. "It's happening again! It's happening again!"
There was a shred of hope that maybe she did just want to chat about my return from leave, but I think in my heart I knew. When I signed onto that Zoom call, with my newborn baby in the bouncer beside me because I didn't have child care yet, I saw that HR was on the call.
This one was worse because it was on Zoom and they could see my face. I tried to make it through without crying, but I was totally devastated. They gave me a month of severance and three months of COBRA coverage that they'd pay for, so it was a slightly better offer — but not by much. Now we had two babies without health insurance, two babies who needed child care and a two-bedroom apartment to pay for.
I didn't know what to do, but I was angry enough to fight back
The panic was huge. I felt demoralized about trying to find yet another job in such an unstable business, but had no energy to attempt a career pivot or to figure out how my skills might transfer to a different industry.
It was utterly terrifying, and I was so rabid with anger that I consulted with two attorneys this time. They thought that I might have an age discrimination case as well as a pregnancy discrimination one. Per my state's age discrimination laws, the company had to supply a list of the other people laid off at the same time as me. There was just one other worker who was also over 40. I was able to get my severance bumped up a little in my initial negotiations with HR, so I did my research and prepared talking points and kept fighting until I got a bit more.
After this second layoff (the third of my career), I was unemployed for a full year. Even though I know my field is really shaky, the whole ordeal felt so insulting. It was really hard not to feel like this was a reflection of me and my professional value. I must have been the worst employee in the world if people didn't think twice about laying me off while I'm home with a newborn!
I wish had I done a few things differently to protect myself
Ultimately, I don't think there was much I could have done to prevent either termination, but there are a few things I'd advise other moms to do in case they wind up in the same boat:
Keep your resume up-to-date
it's always a good idea, maternity leave or not, because it's easier to keep track of notable achievements in the moment rather than retrospectively, when you're panicking (or brainfogged postpartum).
Document everything
I wish I had kept a paper trail of everything that made me feel uncomfortable or suspicious. I had drafted an email to HR with concerns about how my work was being handled right before I went on leave the first time, but I never sent it because I felt like I was being paranoid and over the top. In hindsight, it might have protected me — or at least given me a stronger argument when fighting for more severance pay.
I know that, in the U.S., I was lucky to have any type of paid leave at all. Those months at home with my newborns were so wonderful. But they ended on these horrible, sour, panicked, rage-filled notes that in many ways negated all the lovely memories we made. I hope no mom has to experience the stress I did by getting laid off while taking parental leave.
*Not her real name
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