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I’ll never forget staring at those two pink lines and being affected by a more complex range of emotions than I knew I was capable of experiencing. I was most surprised by an intense feeling of grief that, in a lot of respects, had to do with having not yet achieved specific career goals I had labeled “premotherhood.” Oh, and the unavoidable fact that I was and still am unemployed.

In February, my husband and I decided to move from Washington, D.C., to Pittsburgh. He accepted a job offer. I planned to leave my magazine job and take my time looking for an editorial position in our new city, starting a personal blog and freelancing in the meantime.

I tease that there must be something in the waters of the three rivers running through the old steel town because about a month after we arrived, I found myself pregnant. Usually, I welcome big life changes, but the anxiety levels attending my employment and gestational statuses overwhelmed me. Who would want to hire someone asking for at least six weeks of leave within a year of being hired? Would the starting salary for a full-time magazine job even be enough to cover the cost of child care? When in the interview process do you mention that you’re pregnant? Or do you?

I began seeking out other women who have been in a similar position to find out how they managed. Some were very upfront during the interviews and had no problem at all negotiating leave. Others went to great pains to hide their condition, discussing their pregnancy only after an offer had been achieved.

I spoke to employment lawyers and corporate human resources experts who advised me to keep all discussions of pregnancy separate from the interview process. Waiting until an offer had been made to begin negotiations of leave would ensure I wasn’t discriminated against.



For the first half of my pregnancy, when I embarked on interviews and applied for remote writing positions, I followed their advice. Mum was the word.

“It’s unfortunate because it feels kind of shameful; you’re going through one of the best experiences of your life and you can’t be honest about it,” Stefanie Haglund, a human resources specialist in Minnesota, told me of her experience transitioning from one company to another while she was pregnant with her son, now 5. “I really wanted this job and I really wanted to be a mother, so I felt I really couldn’t talk about it.”

As I began to grow more apparently maternal, and after my husband and I publicly announced the pregnancy on my blog, the conversations with potential editors and employers grew more awkward. I distinctly remember one discussion in which an editor and I danced less than gracefully around the subject while I assured her I had the capacity to manage more freelance work in the coming months.

These conversations, as well as the dearth of local journalism jobs, only served to strengthen the quelling waves of sadness and frustration that mingled with the excitement I felt as I prepared for motherhood.

In an attempt to manage my anxiety, I began exploring what I’m legally entitled to in terms of leave should I get a full-time gig before our little girl arrives. Because I would be hired less than 12 months before my due date, I would not be eligible to benefit from the Family and Medical Leave Act, and thus would have no job security during whatever leave I managed to negotiate, if any. But the Pregnancy Discrimination Act would cover me.

“Assuming the F.M.L.A. is out of the picture, basically you have to treat a pregnant woman in the same manner as you would any other employee,” said Alejandro Caffarelli, a partner at Caffarelli & Siegel LTD in Chicago and an expert in employment law.

For instance, if an employer is willing to give a man time off to deal with a personal or family medical issue before he is eligible for F.M.L.A., that employer has to give a pregnant woman the same consideration. If it doesn’t, there may be a case of sex discrimination.

But few pregnancy discrimination suits are successful. In 2011, 5,797 pregnancy discrimination charges were filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and only 2.5 percent were successful.

It’s worth noting that the United States is one of only four countries in the world that does not guarantee some form of paid maternity leave. Many countries in Europe and Canada offer at least 26 weeks of paid parental leave.

I find it hard not to feel let down by our system. I want to “lean in,” especially since finding out I’m having a daughter. Not only is it important to me to contribute to her future financially, but I also want to act as a role model for being a successful mother and career person at the same time.

Though I still make a habit of perusing local job listings and regularly checking media job boards, as I enter my third trimester, I’m beginning to feel the futility of the search. As much as I would love to be back at work full time, with the current support system for new parents being so meager, it seems best to just put the whole enterprise aside until after the baby is born.

So much for women being empowered to have careers and be mothers simultaneously when we aren’t encouraged to become a mother and pursue a new job at the same time.