Maria's Story

Summary

Maria was looking forward to a promotion at work when she fell pregnant. But shortly after, her role was made redundant…

At the same time, the UK went into lockdown, so Maria planned to complete her HR qualifications. Unexpected turns left her anxious and depressed through a very difficult year.

Maria and her family decided to relocate, and she landed a freelancer position that worked for her. She got help from the NHS and prioritised getting support from family.

Scroll down to read Maria’s full story. It’s a brilliant example of resilience.

Maria's Story

Before I fell pregnant with my daughter I was at a point in my career where I was looking to advance up the ladder. There were lots of conversations around what would be next and hints at me stepping into a leadership role.

It was a start-up company. I was employee number seven or similar so I’d been there from the start and was well-embedded in the organisation. I could identify we needed a new department and felt I was the person with the right skills to lead it. I was really motivated by the idea of promotion.

When the company found out I would be away for a year on maternity leave, all the conversations fizzled out. They kept saying: ‘Let's talk about it when you come back.’

They handled my final weeks before maternity leave very badly.

I remember crying with stress the day before I went on leave because they had promised my team they’d let them know what was happening and who would be looking after them, and then they changed it all. My team were angry with me. Many of them didn’t think it was fair. But I was leaving. My mind, at that point, was on my 38-week antenatal appointment.

I went on maternity leave at the end of February 2020, and then the country went into lockdown. The second that happened, there was a call from work. They had decided to make me redundant.

The call lasted seven minutes. And I just thought, well, what can I do? I was still waiting to have my baby.

About a week later, I got another call. They weren’t making me redundant, they were putting me on furlough. Then a few days later they realised they couldn’t put me on furlough because I was on maternity leave. They told me to go on maternity leave and that they’d let me know about redundancy later.

They had no idea what they were doing.

I don’t remember being massively stressed by it. I was so desperate for my baby to arrive. It didn't matter.

I had a plan before I’d even gave birth that I was going to do my CIPD HR qualifications while on maternity leave and I thought it would all work out. I'd have loads of time to study while the baby slept. I'd get my qualifications and then move into a wonderful new HR job.

In the July, work got back in touch with me and made me redundant. The pay out meant I had a bit more money than I was expecting on maternity leave. I was angry with them and fed up with how it had all been handled but I was focused on the future.

I started my HR qualifications when my daughter was about five months old and I thought she might be sleeping through the night. I expected to be able to put her to bed and then do a few hours work.

Of course, none of that happened. What I hadn't considered was that my baby might not cooperate with my plan! She’s two and a half now and she’s only slept through the night on one occasion. It was very hard to find time to work and study.

An effect of being in lockdown was that I was desperately anxious and depressed and my baby was terrified of the world. She didn't want to be held by anyone apart from me. She didn't even want my husband to look after her. So it was kind of all on me.

When my daughter was eight months old, I called my GP because I thought I needed help for postnatal depression. In the notes of the call, it said, ‘Is struggling a bit, has only seen her parents twice since baby was born.’  I blocked that memory out but that's how grim it was: my daughter was eight months old and I’d only seen my parents twice.

I was very anxious. I felt like I didn't trust anyone with my baby. I think she probably picked up on this, so no one else could look after her. I had absolutely no break. The times I did see my parents, I was much more comfortable letting them look after her and I think she was more comfortable with them because of that.

I was so scared that my daughter would forget who I was in childcare. I think that's not uncommon for first-time mums leaving their babies. I was worried that the bond we’d built up over the past year, would be ruined because she was going to spend more time with someone else, than she was with me.

It was a very, very difficult year. I was anxious and depressed during my exams. I got feedback on one of my modules and I literally couldn't comprehend what the feedback was in order to be able to apply it to the assignment. I applied it to the wrong section and edited a bit that had been marked as a pass already. I failed that unit. I couldn’t think straight.

I was terrified about finding a new job. The idea of starting a completely new job with no phased return and feeling like I would need to be 100% impressive from the word go - well, I was just falling apart about it.

I did want to go back to work. I really enjoyed using my brain. I found maternity leave quite hard, quite isolating, quite lonely, especially when we couldn’t see people. Businesses weren't really up for conversations about part-time. The places that were open to part-time were still rigid and restrictive with their hours.

We had a Slack group of the people who’d been let go from my previous company and I posted about what kind of work I was looking for. A colleague had set up her own business for freelancers and she got in touch. She explained that all they asked was for freelancers to be available for some of the day, every day. They didn’t set any hours and that's what I ended up doing. I sent my daughter to a wonderful nursery for half days, five days a week.

In the intervening time we moved to Derbyshire. The nurseries in London charged upwards of £100 a day and were a good 20 minute drive away from where we lived. It was just going to be impossible to make it work in London. I was so anxious about it. The nursery waiting lists were ridiculous too. They weren't doing open days because of lockdown. There were no settling in days. You had to turn up, drop your child off at the door and drive away, which I think is the one of the cruellest things that happened in lockdown. There was a complete disregard for the mental health of parents.

My parents had a rental house in Derbyshire and the tenants were moving out in January. At that point, my husband was still working from home and I was in such a state. I was so miserable, not coping, so we decided we would sell our flat and move into my parents’ rental house. We would do that for six months and then return to London, just to give me a bit of respite. In the end we stayed there for six months and then bought a house in Derbyshire.

My husband commutes to London now. I found a nursery three minutes drive from our house. They were happy to do open days and settling in days. We went for an open day and I left crying, realising it was going to be okay.

I look back on this time and remember wondering if it was completely mental to move to Derbyshire, but sometimes the mental things are the things that actually save you. Very slowly, I started to piece my life back together. I was working for my friend, I was using my brain, I was remembering I was good at my job. A previous company I’d worked for in London asked me to come back. I explained how much money I needed, that I wanted to work part-time and I no longer worked in London. They still wanted me.

I told them about my HR qualification and eventually moved into the HR manager role.

I started doing half days because that felt manageable but then I realized it can be hard to get anything done doing four hours in the morning. After a while I started doing a few full days. Now I do four days, I have Wednesdays off, so I do two and two which works really well. The long days at nursery are fine. It's not as scary as I thought it was going to be, especially now that my daughter has settled. They're so good with her and she loves it there.

I am a lot better. I got therapy on the NHS, which was wonderful. I'd always heard horror stories about waiting lists for NHS talking therapy, but if you have a baby under two, I think you get fast-tracked. I only waited two weeks to start therapy. I was very well looked after and referred to lots of additional services as well.

I’m now in my second pregnancy and they've given me a consultant who specializes in maternal mental health. My anxiety is mostly manageable these days. It has come back a bit since I got pregnant with my second baby.

I see my parents all the time now. My sister has kids the same age and so we see them every week. We have so much more support and everything feels a bit less scary.

I'm slightly apprehensive about what it's going to be like having two children. My husband will need to do two days a week in the office, in London, which means he normally goes down very early on a Tuesday morning and comes back on a Thursday night.

My advice to other parents would be lower your expectations. Don’t expect to get much done on the day you first take them to nursery. If you need to just sit and drink coffee in a cafe nearby, and cry, that’s fine - it’s normal.

Limit the pressure that you're putting on yourself. Working in HR I speak to mums about their return to work and they say, ‘I think I'm going to come back four full days.' But actually it’s better to be less rigid and manage expectations. What if you do one day and actually four feels impossible?

Perhaps have two plans: the good version you’re aiming for, and the full back version if things don’t turn out as expected.

I don't necessarily know what the answer is to improving returning to work other than better widespread understanding of looking after women. Maternity leave is not a long holiday and we won't necessarily be ready to return after a year off, or even after multiple years off. Some people have been at home with their babies for years. Coming back to work is really hard.

I was very accepting of my redundancy. I knew it was a fair process. They'd made everybody with my job title redundant. So there was no question that it was a discrimination thing. I chose to focus on what I was doing next. I wanted to use the pay out to train in something else, or to pay for help with my CV - basically trying to be proactive. In the end I used it to pay for my HR qualifications. I took the good things from it and moved forward.

I was so proud of myself for getting my HR qualification and the fact I did it at a time when I could barely get myself dressed some mornings. It was a slog but it was something to focus on.

As a society we put a ridiculous burden on women. We pay them roughly £150 a week to look after their babies while they're on maternity leave.

We’re currently doing financial planning to try and work out what we can afford for me to take on maternity leave for our second baby. The cost of childcare, the stress of trying to get a child into childcare… It’s not fair. It shouldn't be like this.

We should care enough to support women properly to have babies and come back to work. It's not some sort of mad hobby that we thought we would take upon ourselves. We're not asking to go and climb mountains and come back to work. We're asking to perpetuate the human race and continue contributing to our economy, and yet we just make it so difficult for women. It makes me angry that it becomes about survival. I think there are good people doing good things to try and make change. Until then, we have to just keep on surviving.