Not only health: what a woman sacrifices when she becomes a mother

Got fired

Marina, 32 years old. She was left without her favorite job, where she once quickly and easily grew from the position of an assistant to a chief accountant in a large company. Business trips all over the world, receptions at the top officials of the city, good salary, pleasant bonuses at the end of the year. All this was before pregnancy. Marina assured that as soon as she recovered from childbirth, she would immediately return to the office. To save space, I made reports on a remote site, the last one sent half an hour before the birth of my daughter.

Everything did not go according to the plan of the young mother. Daughter Ksyusha turned out to be a rather sickly girl with a wild affection for her mother. She didn’t recognize anyone’s hands or lullabies, only her mother’s. So Marina stayed at home for a year and a half. Out of maternity leave, which was much less than the usual monthly income, it was time to return to work. But it didn’t work out.

The company where Marina worked was officially liquidated, but only on paper, in fact, they simply changed the name of the LLC. Moreover, according to rumors, they did it because of several young mothers who were about to leave the decree. Marina was left with compensation and with ghostly hopes of finding a similar job, at least half the salary against the previous one.

For a year and a half, the world of accounting has not exactly turned upside down, but there are changes. Other companies are in no hurry to take a mother with a small child into the state, offering work on a self-employment basis. They pay little, demand a lot. And Marina will have to start from scratch, perhaps again from the position of a referent.

Lost her husband

Natasha, 25 years old. She is young, beautiful, she has a charming son Makar and a difficult divorce from her husband. The spouse divides the apartment and everything in the apartment, he even disassembles the table set into “three spoons for me, three for you.” And the story began beautifully. We met in fitness because of our love for art-house cinema. She is slim and very smart, he is pumped up and very promising. A beautiful couple.

Then there was a pregnancy, which was rather difficult, with preservation, cesarean and complications. Natasha gained 20 extra pounds, stopped looking so impressive, albeit no less charming. Neither running nor strength helped to lose weight. “Check the thyroid gland,” doctors and nutritionists shrugged their shoulders.

And Natasha spent day and night with the child: feed, take a walk, put him to bed. What kind of art-house is there, if I could have time with dinner and put myself in order. The husband stopped liking such a wife: she got fat, stupid, all the talk about what to buy for Makar, what circles to go to and what the teachers said. As a result, there followed an ugly divorce with a section, ridiculous alimony and an urgent exit to work, the first one that came across – as a cashier in the nearest hypermarket near the house.

Lost health

Olga, 35 years old. Yes, many have warned that pregnancy at this age can affect the body unpredictably. But Olga did not think about it, she just carried her first child – Nikita. And like all 9 months passed normally, without any difficulties. Health was lost about three months after giving birth. And, it seems, finally and irrevocably. It all started unexpectedly, the fillings from the teeth began to fall out, as if they were slipping out. Then the teeth themselves fell down – caries destroyed a practically healthy tooth in just a month. Olga stopped smiling, cut her hair short, as her hair began to fall out. Further more. On examination by a doctor who tried to determine the cause of the failure by analysis, she lost consciousness from acute pain. Renal colic caused by pyelonephritis.

Honestly, before pregnancy I had absolutely healthy kidneys, now I suffer from seizures every month, – Olga admitted.

The back also fails. Olga, exhausted from the wild pains, went for an MRI scan, where they found a couple of fresh hernias that should be removed, but how to do such an operation with a child in her arms?

Almost all organs were affected. Heart murmurs, erosive gastritis, varicose veins, and the icing on the cake are suspected breast cancer. While the woman is waiting for the results of the biopsy, the nerves have surrendered.

“I stopped sleeping at all. Before pregnancy, I was a healthy, cheerful woman without problems, now I am falling apart like an ancient old woman, and there is no end to my ailments, ”Olga confesses.

Constantly humiliated

“It seems that a woman with a child is such a punching bag,” says 38-year-old Inga.

It all started with neighbors who tortured the young mother with claims. If the child cries, there is a terrible knock on the heating radiators. If sand appears somewhere in the entrance, a delegation of several neighbors immediately interrupts the doorbell, demands that Inga wash the entire entrance, because garbage could only appear from a baby carriage, but how could it be otherwise? She is even accused of singing a lullaby. And it’s not that it’s only Inga’s problem, the neighbors bully all the mothers in the house.

If suddenly Inga with a light folding stroller decides to take a few bus stops with her son, she immediately gets another batch of insults from “stay at home” to “rogue, they haven’t saved up for a car, but everyone is giving birth”.

In the store, the basket of a baby carriage is ransacked by cashiers, and often Inga is accompanied by a vigilant security guard, who thinks that the young mother came here not for milk, but for delicacies, which she will try to carry past the cash register.

The bank refused to issue a credit card, although Inga receives the maximum maternity allowance monthly, but it happens that you have to pay something in excess of the usual amount. The manager at the bank said, they say, if you go to work, come.

“And at the next table, a rather large sum was approved by an obviously drinking pensioner,” Inga wonders.

Just tired

The easiest and most common option. Previously, Luda was just a woman contented with life. She could break into a burning tour with a small backpack, she could stay with her friends in a cafe or with colleagues at work. She could eat the day before yesterday’s soup and cook sausages for dinner. I was not late for a visit, drove a small car and knew exactly what she would do on the weekend.

Now Luda is a mother. She still works, but does not stay in the office, despite the sidelong glances of her colleagues and an unfinished report. She finishes it at home, between one and two in the morning, when the family finally went to bed, the food for tomorrow is ready, and the dishes are washed and laid out in their places.

Luda plans travels in advance, but she has never gone on them yet. Either the child gets sick, then the child has no one to leave with, then something else, because of which you have to return tickets, revoke the reservation.

Luda no longer eats anything. The husband boasts at work that his wife is an excellent cook, and Luda falls off her feet, trying to keep track of pilaf and borscht. Cooking in her life is the second longest after work.

“I want my son to eat right, I try to cook homemade, but it takes a lot of time, and all this seven days a week,” says Luda.

Luda changed the car, instead of her beloved Smart, a rather high-spirited and comfortable urban version, she had to buy a simple roomy car.

If the child is sick, I go on sick leave, if the child needs to be taken somewhere, I am again. It’s not that my husband doesn’t help me, but a colossal responsibility has been added to my work, cooking and cleaning – upbringing and caring for the child.

Luda admits that her strength is already running out. And these are not just nice words, everything is so, she has been on pretty serious sedatives for almost a month. Soon the course will be over, it is not clear what will happen next.