Pregnant for the Holidays? What to Tell Your Boss (and When)

Hey guys, welcome back to Preview Lions podcast. This is Sarah and I know we're in the holiday seasons. You're like, Sarah, wait, we're talking about workplace and pregnancy. Yes, we're going to talk about that because we know all the cute like, Hey, I'm pregnant at Christmas or I've got, you know, a little button up in a Thanksgiving. You all did. Now it's time to get real about it in the workplace. So I brought back our favorite lawyer, Ari Ellen. She is going to give us the lowdown. Welcome, my friend. Thank you, Sarah, so much for having me. Glad to be back. We're super excited. Okay, so we know it's all fun and games and then now it's real. Like, and we feel the pressure of, you know, okay, we're pregnant. Am I going to lose my job? When do I tell my boss? Am I showing like how am I going to go to the bathroom and throw up for the fifth time today? All the good things. It's all real and it can hit all at once. If this is the first pregnancy or if this is a another pregnancy that you're excited about, it's like, Oh gosh, didn't I just get back from maternity leave? How does it all work? So I'm happy to unpack this with you, figure out if there are some tips and tricks that can work for everyone. I'll do my fun and favorite lawyer disclosure. I am a lawyer, but I am not your lawyer. So please feel free to seek your own legal advice. I'm going to try to keep this really general and high level for your listeners. Perfect. So before we dive, share about why you're passionate about this and give if they've not heard your first episode with me, give us a little bit about you and why you care about this so much. Yeah, absolutely. So I'm a civil rights lawyer by training. I was in private practice for several years. I worked at the federal courts for two years before being in private practice. And while I was in private practice as a lawyer in our home state of Alabama, I really focused my practice on labor and employment and civil rights laws. So this is an area where I've been working in really for about 10 years and have always just been passionate about what our civil rights laws are, what those protections are, and how we harmoniously weave those into having more successful workplaces and working environments. So I love it. I've shifted gears a little bit in the last 18 months. And I actually now work at Auburn University, where I lead our Office of Equal Opportunity Compliance. We are Auburn University Civil Rights Office here on campus, and we serve our campus community, including some of the extension services. So we're really all over the state of Alabama, leaving compliance and pregnancy related compliance is part of what we do. So this has been my world for about 10 years now. Most importantly, you're a woman, you're a mom, you've navigated this pregnancy postpartum personally. So we know you're the best person to go to this. Okay, so one of the biggest questions women have is that like, okay, so it happened, I'm pregnant again, or first time either way, when and how do they tell their employer? And you know, what should they consider making kind of that decision of when and how? Because I feel like that's something people go one, two ways, like, you're like, I just not going to do it until like, it's obvious. And it's so awkward that it's there, or I'm going to blurt it out the first time I see them maybe in a work meeting in front of everybody. Yeah, those are really hard questions to navigate, especially because they're so personal. This is really where your personal life really can come into play in a workplace. Some people are more private than others, as you say, other people want to share happy news as soon as possible. I would strongly encourage folks to, if you aren't already spend some time with your own HR policies at work, because there might be some policy requirements at your particular employer that you might need to be mindful of, particularly if you need to request paid or unpaid leave for postpartum considerations, some employers like a certain amount of lead time for planning purposes. So there might be some answers in your own workplace policies already. So that's always a good starting point. From a legal perspective, there is no real right or wrong answer for the most part. There is no requirement that you must disclose by the 20th week of pregnancy or week 36. There's nothing like that. So really, this is going to be based on what you need so that your employer can support you and work with you on your own particular journey. That's my best answer is there's no right or wrong. I would again encourage you and your listeners just to think about what's going to make the most sense in my workplace. As far as who you tell or how you tell them, that's also really up to you. A common scenario is going to your HR professional. That might be your office manager. If you're a smaller job, it might be you have a really large HR team. You can always go to agent making, helping navigate how you tell other people what that timeline looks like, what paperwork might be required for leave and things like that. And Sarah, as you mentioned, I had to do that twice myself. So I know it can be scary. I know it can be overwhelming. And I literally knew what my rights were because I practiced this. Yeah. Yeah. No, it is. And it's, it's one of those challenging things that I don't, there's so much I feel like a motherhood and parenthood. You don't think about it before it happens, right? And like, this is not one of those things, but this is a conversation we want you, even if you're considering getting pregnant, have this in the back of your mind. So you're feeling more prepared because it can be a really sensitive subject. So, you know, like me, I'd had a miscarriage and then I was pregnant again. So I had an extra level of almost anxiety about that following pregnancy. Right. So luckily, I was able to share that with my manager and we can kind of figure out some things that way. But there's different layers to everybody's journey. So that is what's really important is saying, you know, how is your mental health in this? Like, is it a super physical job? Is it a sit at the desk job? Is this a, like, I was a nurse at the time. So I had to be careful about like radiation or if I was giving chemo to patients, obviously, I didn't want to be doing that when I was pregnant. So I had to have some kind of disclosures. But then I was also in a place where I felt supported to say, you know, guys, I'm also really scared of losing this baby. So it was an odd place to navigate. But again, I didn't have anybody like a podcast like this to hear and be like, okay, what are you doing? Like tell me what to do. So I think it's again, so important. So what legal protections do pregnant employees have at work? Because I think we hear about it, we hear bills, we hear thoughts, but we're like, okay, so break it down. Like, what do we have rights as a pregnant worker? There are several federal laws that engage with and extend protections for pregnancy and for pregnancy related medical conditions. So I promise we are not going to bore everyone with a deep dive into the weeds of all these different laws. But just an overview of some of them are Title seven of the Civil Rights Act, which protects against discrimination by your employer on several different categories, one of which is sex or gender. There's also the Pregnancy Discrimination Act that was kind of folded into that in the, oh gosh, I want to say the 90s, but don't quote me on that exactly. There's also another law that people have probably heard of called the Americans with Disabilities Act. So while pregnancy itself is not considered a disability under the ADA, there are pregnancy related medical conditions for which you can get reasonable workplace accommodations. Justiceable diabetes is a common example. We see it can be things related to sciatica or other physical conditions. So while pregnancy is not covered, some of the symptoms or ailments or just conditions of pregnancy might be covered by the ADA. One of the newer laws that was actually passed in the last couple is called the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act. You'll hear people talk about the PWFA. And that act actually went a little bit beyond what Title seven and the ADA were already doing. And it's kind of a gap filler, if you will. And that law basically says, and again, this is really high level, but that if an individual, if a pregnant woman goes to a supervisor and requests workplace accommodations, there's not a formal rigid process where you have to do all of this paperwork and go through a really intense interactive process. I like to explain it as it's the low hanging fruit. It's the I'm going to need time off for my prenatal appointments. You know what? I'm going to need to be able to access the restroom more frequently because I'm growing a baby. I need to be able to sit down a little bit more if I have a really physical job. I need reasonable breaks for water. I might have to come in a little bit late here or there as I'm dealing with morning sickness. So it's a really broad level of protection for women to say, all you have to do is put your supervisor on notice and they have to work with you for reasonable accommodations. Yeah, I think that is something that for so long, we thought maybe just didn't apply to us, right? And it's sometimes that old school mentality like, you know, I suffer through it, like you guys should suffer through it. There have been major changes even in the last couple of years. I want to say the PWFA was enacted in 2023, if I'm remembering correctly. So that's pretty recent. And it might be one of those things that not all supervisors are trained on it yet. So you might have to work with your HR folks for some education because it's what can be really easy is folks like me will drill into people, oh, if somebody needs a workplace accommodation, we have to go through the process. We need this paperwork, that paperwork, and this is how we do it. Well, the PWFA was designed because pregnancy and pregnancy related medical conditions are short term, hopefully, you know, this is not something that we need to spend two months of your pregnancy dealing with the paperwork. By then you might not meet the accommodation because your morning sickness might have passed. So it's trying to get the people in the room to say, what do you need on this short term basis? How do we best accommodate you to support you through this? And then once you return, you might not have those accommodations for forever because you're considered back. And you're moving forward with your original job responsibilities, you might not have that upgraded parking anymore. You might not have the same breaks, but we want to work with you while you're pregnant to get you what you need. I love that. What about who can women turn to if they feel like, okay, they're like, all right, I did that. I tried that. Have you ever met this lady? Have you ever met this man that I'm having to talk to, right? Or my coworker is already given me the side eye when I go to the bathroom or, you know, like when they're feeling it's kind of hostile, they feel like they've asked, they've said, and they're kind of hitting this point of, well, what's next? Yeah, I would hope that they would have a lot of options. Again, my experience representing a lot of different employers, some mom and pop shops, some really large employers is that typically HR wants to help you and to do the right thing. So if you're getting pushback from a particular colleague or a supervisor, your first stop I would typically recommend is going to HR. Go to your human resources folks and say, hey, I had this conversation with my supervisor, I'm just closing this. This is what I'm experiencing. What can we do to help? Because again, you might have policies at your employer that are going to speak to this where it's not just the law protecting you, but your workplace policies as well. I love that. And you know, something I never did is I never looked before I signed an employment contract and saying, okay, what is my maternity leave? What is my pregnancy rights? Like that was not something when I was a young 20-something-year-old looking for jobs in my head thinking that should be important. So we do have listeners who are, again, the very early stage. That is something when you're considering a couple of different employers to say, well, what do you offer when I become a mom? Is there other moms working there? Does it seem like they get to go to their kids' functions? Does it seem like she feels comfortable coming back pregnant and then postpartum? Stuff like that that just never entered my brain. Yeah. And again, you have listeners all over the country. There are different regulations at the state level in some states. So there are states that do have guaranteed paid maternity or paternity leave programs. Alabama has some to an extent. It's not statewide, but we did actually this past legislative session, past paid maternity leave for certain state employees, including teachers. So now all of our public school teachers have access to paid maternity leave. That's a really big thing because as we know, statistically, so many of our teachers are women. So you might not have everything within your own company, but depending on where you are living, you also might have some state law protections. But since I'm not hard in every state, I certainly can't speak to each state and what they have on the books. Right. So now we're on maternity leave. So let's say we've had the discussion, we told our employer, we're pregnant. It's physically very obvious we're pregnant. We're very, very pregnant at this point. And it kind of becomes the conversation of, okay, how do I go about maternity leave? What should we know about FMLA or short-term disability? Or what's if, you know, and I know a lot of people, they need to check this because I know that, you know, at the VA back when I was with them, if you hadn't been with them for a certain amount of employee time, certain things, benefits of like leave did not count for you. So this conversation, I know it's tricky. It's not going to fit everybody's box, but where can they start navigating? Because we both know how critical it is. Just like, you know, we both had difficult, postpartum journeys. Like, you don't know what's going to be handled to you. Yeah. That's a great question. And as you noted, there's no one size fits all answer, but a few baseline things to keep in mind. One, and I can't emphasize this enough, your company might have a policy that is more expansive when what the law requires. When I was with my law firm, I was about floored because my law firm generously gave all associates 16 weeks of paid maternity leave. Wow. That is above and beyond what any federal law or state law would require. But the law firm wanted women to come back. They wanted us to have the time we needed to be successful as parents and then to come back and continue practicing. That was great. That was just a law firm policy. I didn't have to take FMLA leave. I didn't have to navigate complex laws or paperwork because that was just a gift from my employer. And looking back on it, I am so thankful for that time that I had with my second child. Other employers don't have those same policies. Some might have better policies. Some might have six weeks or eight weeks. It just depends. So again, looking at what your employer offers is probably the most important first step. But that employer also might have in order to be eligible for the sleep policy, you have to have been employed here for X amount of time. That was not true at my law firm. But it is true at Auburn University. You have to be employed here for, oh gosh, I want to say it's a full year before certain policies apply to you. And there are a lot of reasons for that. One of them is because it actually does mirror what the FMLA requires. So to be eligible for FMLA leave, which is unpaid leave, you do have to work both a minimum number of hours and you have to have been employed for a year. So there are some considerations when you are maybe making some family planning choices to think about have I been with my employer long enough to qualify either for some federal right protections or for our own policies and what they offer. So it's important to know that's actually a conversation I have with new hires in my office. I'm like FYI, based on information you voluntarily shared, plant this in the back of your head because I don't want you not to be eligible for leave or be in a position where you wouldn't qualify. So step one, always check with your own employer what your policies are. Pretty much every employer has a handbook or policies readily available or if you ask HR for them, they will provide them to you. If you do work for an employer that does not have its own parental leave program and you are looking at FMLA, again, there are some considerations you need to keep in mind. One, you have to have worked there for a year, you have to have hit a certain number of hours. I want to say it's 1,250 hours in that year. So you have to be a little bit more than part time, right? You can't just be a 20 hour per week employee. FMLA does have some paperwork requirements. Again, that's more just making sure the employer has what it needs. And a lot of it is related to insurance benefits and who's paying for what and all of those things. Having a good benefits team is really part of the magic in HR as you might imagine. But typically you would submit a request and ideally if you are not having a pregnancy related complication before your due date or an emergency situation, you'll kind of know when your due date is and you'll be able to plan and request the leave. And you are eligible for up to 12 weeks of unpaid job protected leave. Which I think that's what comes to people's mind is they're going, how am I going to afford this for 12 weeks if I don't get the paycheck? There's just a lot that comes to play. And I guess the bigger question is, is like, do they have to keep my job for me? Or can they replace me? That's in the back of their mind. Yeah. And those are legitimate worries and fears. I again, completely understand that now we're not just playing, you know, for us, my husband and I are our own selves, our own mortgage. We're now responsible in our case for now two beautiful little other children. And we got to be able to pay for them and in our house that takes two working parents. So I understand those anxieties so much firsthand. It can be scary to think about 12 unpaid weeks. I think there are a lot of ways to think about it. And again, families need to plan what's best for them. It's going to work in their scenario. Just because you're eligible for 12 weeks consecutively, doesn't mean you have to take them consecutively. You could maybe decide, I'm going to take four or six or eight weeks. And then maybe your spouse, whether they work at the same company or a different company, might also be eligible to take a certain number of weeks. So you can stack some FMLA leave time. You could also use some of that time consecutively, and then hold some of the other time on a rolling basis to say, well, I want to come back. But I might need to take some additional leave on this date for the baby's appointments or, I know the baby's been in daycare, but, you know, hand foot mouth is going around. It came to our house. I'm going to need four or five days off. So there is some flexibility with it, but FMLA is unfortunately unpaid. But it does guarantee that your job is secure, and you're going to be able to come back to that position. That's great. What's to say? So I mean, it sounds like you had this amazing workplace support with, you know, your pregnancy. But let's say to the moms who's like, okay, but like, what do I say? And how do I speak? And how can I educate myself? So, you know, when it's that backlash, when you're being treated differently, you're like, I know I'm being treated differently, or I'm in an awkward conversation at lunch, and they're like, you're pregnant again. But you know, like, how do you kind of say, how would you speak that or talk to them? Because, you know, you kind of just like, oh my gosh, is this person really saying this to me? Or they're going, are you really coming back? Or, you know, these just kind of hurtful comments that come at the fact that it's like, I always tell people, I was, you know, I'm born being able to have a baby. That is not something I chose before I was born. And here I am. And this is, you know, the gift that I have that I am able to carry babies and deliver babies, my husband cannot and I can't. And that's nobody's fault. And this is what it is. So like, why am I getting this backlash that I am doing something that only my body can do that we want? Yeah. And those are always difficult scenarios. And sometimes it's truly a lack of education or the other person not realizing how hurtful those types of comments can be. So sometimes it's a simple conversation if you feel safe having that conversation to privately be like, you know, Joe, Susie, whomever, you know, those were really hurtful comments. I'm so excited for the stage of my life. And I'm really looking forward to being able to come back and to do it all. Whatever it is, sometimes that works. When that doesn't work, again, I think that's when you need to look at what your workplace handbook says on employee misconduct and how it's handled. Usually there's agreements process. There are going to be guidelines for who you need to bring that to, how you need to bring it up. And again, usually there will be some type of manual or a collection of policies that describe this. So really arming yourself with, I know what my rights are. I know that I don't deserve to be treated this way, whether it's a material change, like, oh, well, we're going to take you off that project because the baby will be born. You won't be able to do anything. Okay, well, do you have to take me off right now? Or am I doing two weeks and we're transition planning? So this is so context specific and dependent. But usually there will be a bring a concern to your supervisor. If it's not resolved at that level, then it escalates here to here to here. Those workplace policies will typically tell you how to navigate any type of workplace misconduct or workplace infractions. And I hate that it's a thing that you even have to talk about, but it is. And I think some people just feel like it's more work for them, or that if you're out, then I'll have to take on your role, right? It's kind of like they see it as like the balance shifts of workload. And I always love the comments like, oh, enjoy your vacation, your maternity leave. That is not a vacation. And like, if you say that vacation, preach. That is one of the most annoying comments I've ever heard is like, do you think she's on vacation with a newborn just gave birth? Yes, all the things. Yes. Just wild. What do you think helped you just on a personal note, being pregnant in the workplace, a very high-paste, very, you know, you, you're, you're running it, you're doing it on both times. Like what was some things that helped you with that? What helped you when you came back? Was it a coworker? Was it what you did for yourself? Like give our listeners kind of like an insight there because I can hear them in the back going, what did she do? How did she handle this? Yeah, no, I'd be happy to. So I was with two different employers when I gave birth. My first child was born when I was still with a judge on the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. And in that situation, because of the type of job I had, I was not FMLA eligible. And I was really considered a temporary employee. I had a one-year term for this job. So I worked with my judge personally, and then with Maine HR in Atlanta for the 11th Circuit. And I took two weeks of paid leave, six weeks of unpaid leave, and then I came back. But I was so blessed because we were able to stretch that budget. We planned for it. We knew what we were getting ourselves into. What we didn't expect were the pretty major complications I had with my son postpartum. He was totally fine, thank goodness, but I did not do so well in his labor and delivery. So a lot of it was just, I was in a small office. They were compassionate. They were supportive. I was not moving very fast. I wasn't fully back up to speed. But you know what? I never had issues pumping. I never had issues feeling like, well, she said she was coming back. And now she's not even able to do X, Y, and Z. Some of that was just pure luck because I was with incredible people. And I know that's not everyone's case, but acknowledging that I needed help was really important because then they understood. You know, they knew that I had been really unwell. They knew I needed to have another surgery to correct and repair some of the damage that was done to my body. Those were important conversations. And they were really, you know, I didn't go into great detail. I wasn't gross or medical, but it was like, yeah, the delivery was not what we anticipated. And here we are. And this is what we're going to have to do. Sometimes just that transparency helped people meet me where I was. So I think that if you're safe to do that in your workplace, I think that's a great step. It was a totally different story when our second child was born. She is a sweet COVID baby. So we were in a really different environment. I had levels of support. Maybe I'm just the luckiest litigator in the world from that sense. But once I was ready to come back, I had worked really diligently on the front end to get my cases where they were ready to be neatly transitioned to help someone pick up where they needed to for a few months. We had worked with the Post-Incouncil on some deadlines to be like, well, you know, they wanted to move a deadline. And it was kind of that really funny. I was literally eight months pregnant. And I was like, that's not going to be possible, guys, because I will literally have a baby. So it's either this date or we push it off six months. So some of it, again, was just clear communication about this is my life. Like, they knew I was pregnant. You could not look at me and not think, is she pregnant? I was so very clearly pregnant. I remember I filed a major brief the Friday before my daughter was born on a Tuesday. And I was like, that's it. That's a wrap. I'll see y'all in 12 weeks when I'm right. I think I came back after 14 weeks. And was like, I'll be back around the state and I'll be ready to pick up. But one of the things that was great was even towards the end of my maternity leave, I started communicating with people, hey, still scheduled to come back around, you know, where are we? Can you brief me on where we are? What you need when I come back? And then it really was just having that transition plan. I was lucky because I'd been at the firm for a few years. People knew me. People knew that if I said this was going to get done, this was how it was going to get done when it was. So a lot of that is use the trust, use your capital that you built up in the workplace to say, I'm back. This is what I can do. This is where we are and let's move forward. And it worked really well. And a lot of that was, I made it really clear what my part of the bargain was. I'm back on this date. This is what I can do. You know, I was again, really lucky. I had an office with a door that locked. I could just lock my door and pump and keep working. I know some people don't have that flexibility. They have to go to a lactation room. And that is a little more interrupting to their flow. But, you know, it took a few weeks because we had a pretty open door policy in our office in particular. So you would like knock on the door and then walk in. And I could always hear that knock, knock, knock, knock. And then the door just jostling. I think, why is the door locked? And I find one time I was just like, I'm pumping. And let me tell you, after that, if they knocked on the door and like gingerly tested the door, not they just are like, I'll see you later. Come find me. Because they were like, we don't want to walk in on her. We don't want to, you know, and a lot of that was just they got used to it. And after about nine months, the door wasn't locked anymore. And they were like, Oh, I guess we're done with that. And we moved right on. So sometimes it's here's my boundaries. Here's my communication. I wasn't shy about the fact that I had just had a baby and was pumping. I was like, pumping, call you in 20 minutes. None of my male partners wanted to walk in on me while I was pumping. They were terrified of the thought. That is the fastest way to get them out. And did you have any coworkers that was moms too, or like older moms, or that you felt kind of like, you know, because I always tell people it's community, right? And it's sharing is having mutual understanding that can help pull you out of things or encourage you when you're having a bad day. Yeah, no, I did. There are several women at my law firm who have been moms, whether they're empty nesters now, or we're all kind of going through it together. And obviously, like I said, this was my second child at this point. I was so much more confident as a mom and what I was doing. So it was a lot easier for me just to be like, Okay, well, this is how it's going to work. And every once in a while, you know, one of us would I chill up with a stroller and be like, Yep, she's sick. I need to grab some things and take stuff back home. And it was just kind of like, Well, okay, but I had a lot of flexibility. And again, I know not everyone has that. But having that community. And again, I worked predominantly with men just in the practice area that I was. One of my most wonderful and greatest mentors, who is a mom herself, had actually gotten a position on the federal bench. So she transitioned around the same time I was pregnant when she transitioned, but she didn't stop mentoring me. She didn't stop supporting me and encouraging me. So even if the lawyer wasn't still in the office next door, everyone saw it's just like, send a text message, check on someone. And I had so much of that moms from outside of the law practice moms from church moms from my own friend group. So community so important. And then honestly, all the guys I worked with, they were all dads. So when I got misstiticed and, you know, was out for a few days because I had a fever and felt so awful and just couldn't do anything. My husband actually went to my office and was like, Aria asked me to pick up a couple notebooks because she's trying to, you know, work from home a little bit. And someone, like we were a small group in my particular office, we all knew each other. Well, so it's like, Oh, like, is she okay? Is it the baby? Remember, it's like, Oh, she has misstitice. And this poor, this partner was like, Oh, I remember when my wife had that. Oh, so there was a lot of compassion and empathy, even if they didn't know what it was like, they had a wife who did, who understood they remember when their kids were born. Again, so much of it was a blessing because I had a group who loved me and supported me. But I also was open about my motherhood appropriately, I hope. So that helped them. I didn't try to hide it to be like, you can't know I have children, you can't know what my life is like. Yeah, together all the time. They knew I had kids, they knew I was pumping. I apparently knew when I had misstitice. I mean, you can't get much closer than your, your Melco workers knew I'd be at misstitice. And you all come out bigger and better and wonderful and not as I mean, sorry, no, misstitice is one of the most painful things I've ever experienced myself to. So I was not. I managed never to have it when my first child was nursing. It hit me only once, but once was enough. And I hope I never have that again. Tell people I would like that as trauma in my brain, misstitice. Well, you are so amazing. And we appreciate this conversation. It's so important. And guys, I will link in our show notes some of the federal regulation laws that we mentioned, you want to deep dive. You know, they say the break stigma is there's three different ways, right? There's protests, which can go one or two ways. You can be really, you know, protest rights and it can backfire or it can go forward. It's going to be received differently. There's education, which we're doing right now, right? You can self educate, you can educate others, you can help your employer come to standards. And the next one is transparency. Kind of just storytelling with Ari is really so much relate when that coworker whose wife had the same thing, they're going to have a humanistic experience with you if like, oh, I get it. I've been there, right? So it's a combination that we do to navigate our mental health, our motherhood, our jobs, our life. But really, if you can find that connection piece, just like Ari was sharing with someone, I guarantee that's going to move that needle way more than you think it would. Yeah. And Sarah, I would just add to that briefly. The laws that I mentioned, the ADA Title VII and the PWFA are all implemented and administered by the equal employment opportunity commission, the EEOC, which is a federal government administrative body. And their website has so much information about what your rights are as an employee, what employers need to do. They have leaflets and diagrams and pamphlets and workplace posters. So there's so much information at eoc.gov. So you can do a lot of self educating and they're not written just for lawyers. Please don't think you need to be a lawyer or have a law degree to understand. The EEOC's website is very accessible and they'll have a lot of information. And if you feel like, well, I did all these things, I tried to do what was right. They're there. You would have the right to file a complaint with them and it's called a charge of discrimination. So there are ways, I hope it never gets there for any of your listeners. Again, firsthand knowledge and also litigating them. I know they're really stressful situations, but there are really good resources for people to self educate. And sometimes, like I said, with some of these laws and some of the changes we're seeing, it's so new. Maybe your employer just doesn't know, but if you can educate and be like, well, this is what the PWFA is, like, can we get there? That goes a long way. Yeah, I think if nothing else I've learned and motherhood, maternal mental health world, you can't assume what someone's knowledge is about something and maybe give them that benefit of the doubt that they just, like you said, don't know yet. Absolutely. Well, perfect. Listeners, I noticed this jam packed and this is again in the holidays, things that you don't have to be in the holidays to come back and listen to this with your pregnant next summer. You're like, stay on sports in July. Come back to this episode and listen. It is a conversation that's needed anytime of the year, but are you up? We love you. We love you as our lawyer to go to. So thank you so much for being with us. Thanks, Sarah. Enjoy that as always. All right, listeners, I'll be back next week. So have a wonderful time. Maternal mental health is as important as physical health. The Previous Alliance podcast was created for and by moms dealing with postpartum depression and all its variables like anxiety, anger and even apathy. Hosted by CEO, founder Sarah Parkhurst and licensed clinical social worker Whitney Gay, each episode focused on specific issues relevant to pregnancy and postpartum. Join us and hear how other moms have overcome mental health challenges, as well as access tips and suggestions on dealing with your own challenges as moms. You can also browse our podcast library and listen to previous episodes at any time. Please know you're not alone on this journey. We're here to help.