Fertility/pregnancy discrimination at an organization that “supports” women?
Anonymous
Fertility/pregnancy discrimination at an organization that “supports” women?
Sorry for the long post but there's a lot to outline...
I’ve been at my current organization for 4 years and have always had excellent performance reviews and have worked incredibly hard to “prove myself” in the earlier years.
I intentionally sought out my current organization for its fully remote workforce and its mission to support women in their careers - something I desperately desired in my career as I was planning on having children soon and wanted the flexibility and support that seemed guaranteed at this organization.
When I received the offer to join my current organization, they did not have a formal paid parental leave policy as most of the employees were a bit older and already had children. I was the first employee approaching their childbearing years, so as part of my offer I negotiated 3 months of paid parental leave (especially since as a small company there are no other health benefits offered).
In 2022, as my partner and I tried to expand our family, I had two subsequent miscarriages (not to mention other very difficult family issues including the prolonged hospital stay of a mentally and medically unstable family member and the death of my father in law). In short - it was an incredibly difficult year. I needed to take some away from work and went to about 60% part-time from August to December with the intention of always returning to a full-time work schedule. I still worked hard and delivered excellent results during this period.
In January 2023, I had grieved and recovered enough that I was ready to begin ramping back up, although I informed my employer that I was starting to undergo fertility treatments and still needed the flexibility for those appointments. They seemed amenable to this.
In early April 2023, two days after I returned I returned from a planned vacation, I was informed that we were in “cash conservation” mode due to the Silicon Valley Bank collapse and other economic concerns. During this discussion, what seemed like a request was made for me to consider going to 50% time and compensation. Later, it became clear that this was not in fact a request, but something I had no choice in the matter, and that there was no definitive date for when my hours and compensation could return to full-time. (And, by the way, we are hiring 2 new business development executives to try to boost revenue - no doubt my compensation cut subsidizing the base salary of these individuals). I was only 1 of 2 employees affected by this 50% decision.
For a multitude of reasons, this news of course has prompted me to start a new job search. Here’s the kicker though…I’m now 9 weeks pregnant with what seems to finally be a viable and healthy pregnancy. My previously negotiated 3 months of paid parental leave at my current organization is in limbo…I can’t afford to stay at 50% pay indefinitely, nor would it be “fair” for me to take this leave at 50% of my pay when I’ve been working full-time for the majority of my tenure. And because I’m already pregnant, my options for now obtaining paid parental leave at a new employer are threatened by the eligibility period for those benefits. So it’s hard to feel like my current employer has completely ruined any chance of collecting on a benefit I have been long anticipated using - either at my current employer or any future employer.
I realize that there are often very difficult business decisions that need to be made, and that my employer also could’ve laid me off completely instead of the 50% cut…but it’s also put me in a very difficult position…financially and in my ability to share details about my complicated employment situation with my network and prospective employers, including details I’m not quite ready to share yet about the status of my pregnancy, for fear of continued pregnancy discrimination during the hiring process.
I’m open to any and all advice on what I should do, or what I even can do.
Share your insight
Join an authentic community that helps women support each other at work. Share your professional experience or ask for advice — you can even post anonymously.
15 Comments
Join the conversation