Maternity leave and being pregnant in the workplace… do you know your rights?

When I was pregnant with Bug my job came to an end and with a number of months to go until my maternity leave started I hoped to find a new job for the meantime.  During that time I applied for a host of jobs and with it nearing Christmas I thought it would be perfect if I could find a seasonal vacancy as the job would naturally come to an end just before my maternity leave started and I would not feel like I was letting an employer down by starting a job to only have to go on maternity leave a matter of months later.

A dilemma I had when attending interviews was whether I should mention the fact that I was pregnant or not, especially as I was concerned that my growing baby bump would highlight the fact that I was pregnant whether I mentioned it or not.  In the end I decided that honesty was the best policy and informed potential employers of my pregnancy during interviews as I knew it would have to discussed in a matter of weeks when I approached my 25th week of pregnancy if I got a job.  I was pleasantly surprised by the response I got during interviewers and did not feel that I was being discriminated against and not considered for the job because of my pregnancy.

Even though I had a positive experience with potential employers when I informed them of my pregnancy during interviews I was very worried about raising the matter and thought that it would negatively affect my chances of getting a job.

How do you sleep?

Before becoming a parent I never thought about sleep because I actually slept and had hours of uninterrupted, quality sleep. Now I am a parent sleep is very precious to me because those nights of uninterrupted hours of sleep are distant memories and I am now often sleep deprived thanks to my little man. 

Even before little man was born and he was cocooned snugly in my womb my sleep was interrupted….waking frequently because my bladder felt full yet again and another trip to the toilet was called for, being constantly kicked by my little baby who always woke up to party in my womb when it was mummy’s bedtime and struggling to find a comfortable position thanks to my pregnant belly to get some much need zzzzz’s.

Then little man was born and I was even more sleep deprived than before. We woke often and regular through the night in particular because little man was breastfeeding on demand and as such I would not get much sleep during the night. Little man is not much of a sleeper and even as a newborn he would not sleep much in the day but when he would settle for a nap I would have a nap too because otherwise I was like the walking dead. I often wished I could be a hibernating mama bear, cosily sleeping with my little cub but as little man is just like his daddy and a little night owl who would happily party like a rock star all night and catch some zzz’s in the day this wish never came to fruition and instead I was more like a grizzly bear, grumpy thanks to no sleep.