I remember the day I told them. My belly was a secret garden, a tiny bump barely perceptible under my sweater, but my heart was overflowing. I’d worked so hard to get to where I was, to prove my worth, and this baby felt like the ultimate reward after years of dedicated effort. When I finally sat down with my boss to announce my pregnancy and discuss maternity leave, I expected… well, not celebration, but at least professional congratulations. What I got was a cold, calculating stare.
Something shifted that day. It was subtle at first. Emails about my upcoming leave went unanswered. HR documents I needed for planning seemed to vanish into a black hole. My boss, usually sharp and efficient, suddenly became evasive, vague. “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” they’d say, or “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.” But the bridge was rapidly approaching, and I was eight months pregnant.
The stress began to gnaw at me. Every night, I’d lie awake, my growing child kicking inside, as I mentally replayed conversations, trying to find a misstep, a reason for the sudden chill. My partner was my rock, constantly reassuring me, telling me to focus on the baby, that we’d figure it out. But how could I focus when my livelihood, my future, felt so precarious?
A serious suspicious woman | Source: Freepik
Then came the meeting. Two weeks before my due date. My boss called me in, not HR. Just us. Alone. They laid out a plan for my leave that was, frankly, insulting. Reduced pay beyond what was legally allowed, a forced shortened period, and vague threats about my role not being guaranteed upon my return. My heart POUNDED. I felt a surge of adrenaline, cold and sharp. “This isn’t right,” I managed, my voice trembling. “This isn’t what we discussed. This isn’t company policy.”
My boss just smiled, a thin, almost cruel line. “Things change. Business needs evolve. You understand, don’t you?”
NO. I didn’t understand. I understood that I was being systematically pushed out. I understood that everything I had worked for was being stripped away, simply because I was having a baby. The injustice burned. I left that meeting in a daze, tears blurring my vision as I walked out, clutching my swollen belly, feeling the weight of the world on my shoulders.
The next few days were a blur of panic and resolve. My partner was furious. They told me I needed to fight, not just for myself, but for our child. So, I did. I started documenting EVERYTHING. Every email, every meeting, every policy document. I consulted with an employment lawyer, then with HR, bypassing my boss entirely. It was terrifying. I was pregnant, exhausted, and about to embark on the biggest legal battle of my life, all while preparing for the most miraculous event of my life.
Then, the labor started. Early. The contractions were intense, but what was even more intense was the thought of facing my boss again, of losing my career. I pushed. I fought. And then, there they were. Our baby. Tiny, perfect, and completely oblivious to the war raging outside their new world. Holding them, I felt a strength I never knew I possessed. This wasn’t just about my job anymore. It was about their future.
I didn’t stop fighting from my hospital bed. My lawyer did the talking, armed with my meticulous notes. HR was suddenly much more cooperative when faced with legal threats. The company, it turned out, didn’t want a lawsuit, especially one involving maternity discrimination.
A smiling man looking at his wife cooking | Source: Pexels
And then, I WON.
They backed down. FULL leave, full pay, my position guaranteed. An official apology was issued. My boss was reprimanded, though not fired. I remember reading the final email, holding my baby in one arm, feeling a wave of relief so profound it brought tears to my eyes. Justice. I had fought back, and I had protected my family. I had won.
But victory, sometimes, has a bitter aftertaste.
A few weeks after I returned to work, my boss was, surprisingly, almost friendly. Too friendly. It was unsettling. They offered to cover for me for an early exit one day, saying I looked tired. “Go on, get some rest,” they urged, with an unsettling warmth. I appreciated it, I really did. I rushed out, eager to get home to my baby, leaving my laptop on my desk, half-packed.
Later that evening, after the baby was finally asleep, I realized I’d left my charger at work. My partner, ever the sweetheart, offered to swing by and grab it. They had a spare key to the office from an old project. I thanked them profusely.
About an hour later, my phone rang. It was my partner. Their voice was flat, hollow. “I… I found something,” they said. My blood ran cold. What could it be?
“On your boss’s desk,” they continued, their voice cracking. “Their monitor was still on. I shouldn’t have looked, I know, but there was an open tab. A social media profile. Your boss’s. And… and a chat window.”
A chat window? My mind raced, trying to make sense of it. What does this have to do with anything?
“It was a private chat,” they whispered, the sound a ragged sob. “Between them and me.”
MY PARTNER. And MY BOSS.
A woman cooking with a forced smile | Source: Midjourney
Suddenly, every cold stare, every evasive answer, every malicious attempt to deny my leave, to push me out, it all clicked into place. It wasn’t about company policy. It wasn’t about business needs. It wasn’t about sexism or discrimination in a purely professional sense.
It was because my pregnancy, my maternity leave, was an inconvenience to THEIR affair.
My boss wasn’t trying to get rid of me because I was a woman having a baby. They were trying to get rid of me so they could have my partner. The entire fight, the victory I thought I’d won, meant absolutely NOTHING. I had fought to keep my job, while my partner and my boss were planning to take my whole life.
I didn’t win. I lost everything. I just didn’t know it yet.
