While becoming a mother is one of the biggest blessings of our lives, the entire process can take a toll on our mental health. With so many things going on at once, it gets really hard for a mom-to-be to manage everything on her own.
Leena Yousefi, a 39-year-old lawyer who is pregnant with twins, took to her social media handle and talked about the ‘cruel standards’ that pregnant women face in the workplace. She also talked about her own battles to fight the physical and emotional rollercoaster of impending motherhood while trying to maintain a full-time job for the last two months.
I wake up in a constant state of chronic depression, nausea, aversions to everything, disabling migraines, a numbness to the world and a lack of happiness that at times is one of the scariest things I have ever felt. Being pregnant with twins has been the hardest physical challenge I have ever gone through in my life.
Yet, like almost all women today, we are expected to work during the first trimester with no breaks. We get no leave, no paid time off, and little chance to focus on creating life. Then we wonder why the rate of miscarriage is astronomical and why it is often related to stress.
In her eye-opening post, the Vancouver-based lawyer shared the risks of workplace stress for pregnant women and claimed that numerous moms-to-be are threatened to risk their health and themselves in order to ensure their financial security.
Having to rest to literally create life – a heart, a brain, organs – is often treated either as vacation or unpaid time off at best. In our most fragile state, either we sacrifice ourselves or risk our financial security.
She acknowledged that even though she is quite lucky to be in a position to give herself the breaks she needs, she also knows that not everyone else has this choice.
This pain has motivated me to introduce a new policy for YLaw. For now, I am going to be less active in the external world, go inwards, and tend to the most important job I have: creating life.
She ends her post by encouraging the employers to reexamine the cruel standards that women have been subjected to and requests society to create a world where our children do not have to choose between work and being human.
And, here’s what people had to say to about her post:
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