Never again would I accept being sidelined

What happens when the promotion you were promised disappears while you're on maternity leave? A story of having babies, building careers, experiencing loss, and taking back control.

Lisa is a Chief Product Officer who was working at a global pharmaceutical company when she became pregnant with her first child during lockdown. Here she reflects on navigating a transatlantic marriage, a demanding career, and a return to work that felt more like starting again and what she did about it.

At the end of 2020, my partner and I got married, we loved each other but we also lived on two different continents and no one knew when the pandemic would end. Ten days after our wedding, I found out I was pregnant.

I spent my first trimester alone in London. No glowing pregnancy for me, just vomiting at all hours, nosebleeds, insatiable hunger and bone-deep exhaustion. My job was demanding and I was afraid that telling anyone would affect my career, so I worked all hours and kept it to myself.

Near the end of my pregnancy, my department was restructured and I got a new boss, someone impressive, who gave me my first proper performance review at this company. He was surprised I wasn’t already at Senior Director level. When I asked whether a promotion during maternity leave was possible, he said yes.

My son’s birth and his first six weeks are the happiest memories of my life. Three days in labour, two of them spent in a birthing pool in South London with my doula and midwives, waiting for my husband to arrive from the US, and then finally ending up in hospital. The six weeks that followed were a love bubble I never wanted to leave. I gave work no thought whatsoever.

Lisa, a Chief Product Officer, was working at a global pharmaceutical company when she became pregnant with her first child during lockdown

By month eight I was back in London, setting up nursery visits and preparing my return. It was around then that I found out through a WhatsApp chain from colleagues that my boss had left, my team had been handed to a new manager, our previous work had been dismissed and nobody had heard anything about a promotion.

My first call with the new boss was odd. The headline was that no one really knew where I’d be placed when I came back, but that we’d figure it out. I followed up in writing and heard nothing back.

I wish I could describe my first week back as anything other than a Black Mirror episode. My pass and laptop didn’t work, so I had to travel an hour outside London just to get them reinstated. When I returned to the office nobody knew who I was, and my first proper conversation with my new manager was to tell me I could pick what I wanted to do while also reporting to the person who had absorbed my team.

That first week I made myself a promise: never again would I accept being sidelined or made to feel lesser than.

In the background I was also quietly coming to terms with my age. I was almost 40 and wanted another baby. We fell pregnant quickly, which felt like a gift, but something felt off from the very beginning. Very little nausea, just exhaustion. I made it to ten and a half weeks before I started to bleed.

We had a scan. There was a heartbeat. A week later I had a miscarriage in the downstairs loo at home. Nobody had told me it would feel like giving birth. I was too scared to look into the bowl because I couldn’t bear the thought of what I might see, and what would happen when I flushed. In the end I did, and went back to work.

I spent one final year at that company and told my managers directly that if there wasn’t a role matching my skills and the promotion I had been promised within the year, I would leave. By month ten I was asked to apply. I interviewed with several SVPs and got the job. By that point I was four months pregnant with my second child and had already been headhunted externally. I accepted the promotion and ten days later handed in my notice.

Motherhood taught me that you are responsible for your own future. If you want more, demand it and hold people accountable. Because there is space in this world for companies to hire you mid-pregnancy, pay for your maternity leave and wait for you to come back. You are just that fucking wonderful.