I opened up my annual performance review and gasped. For the first time, I was seeing the words “Successful Contributor” instead of the “Exceptional Contributor” I’d earned the previous two years.
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So what changed? I became a mom.
It wasn’t just about the words. It was also that future promotions were tied to them, and my annual review was now stored away in an HR file as a reference point for any raise opportunities.
As our family’s primary earner, my salary covered our health insurance, mortgage, and new life as a family of three. I couldn’t afford to let this slide.
It was a difficult year for me
The year I went from “exceptional” to “successful” was also the year I hemorrhaged two liters of blood during delivery. I spent my first hours of motherhood watching a nurse stick a tube down my baby’s throat because he needed help breathing. I visited him in a wheelchair in the NICU in between iron infusions and pumping sessions since I couldn’t breastfeed him with his tubes.
Because of my blood loss, I returned home anemic. But when night came, rather than sleeping, I’d panic that my baby would stop breathing. When I wasn’t panicking, I was nursing.
Despite it all, I returned to work part-time at 10 weeks. When my baby was 4 months old, I went back to full-time work. I was timing calls around pumping sessions. Some days, I’d have so many calls in a row that by the time I made it to the pump, I was breathing through the discomfort, as my breasts exploded with milk, leaking through my shirt.
I was working 8 hours a day on 4 hours of sleep, pretending it wasn’t destroying me. I was doing the best I could; I just didn’t do it exceptionally.
I kept pushing forward without changing anything
After having a baby, I felt caught between being a great mom and a great employee. I was overwhelmed, trying to be everything for everyone, and I started questioning if I was doing anything well.
But I dove back in — analyzing, optimizing, producing — expending all of my energy in my 9-to-5 to prove myself. I smiled outwardly, as though nothing had changed, but everything had changed.
Time went by, and I settled into my new normal. I constantly felt like I was failing, desperately trying to claw my way back to that exceptional status. I didn’t know how to verbalize my struggles.
One day, during a work call with a partner from Canada, I mentioned that I had a 9-month-old baby. “Wait, what are you doing working?” she asked, shocked. Then she remembered, “Oh, that’s right. You’re in the United States.”
My organization gave me 12 weeks of paid parental leave, very generous compared to most in the US. It felt like I was supposed to be grateful for the time I was given off with my baby. But the truth was, I didn’t feel fully physically recovered until seven months postpartum. Even then, I was still figuring out my postpartum body and how to care for it.
I was working hard for a system that wasn’t working for me
A 2024 survey conducted by Parentaly found that only 20% of expecting mothers in the US receive career support from their manager throughout the parental leave experience.
Even with my “generous” leave time, there wasn’t a structured transition plan in place for me before I left and when I returned. When writing annual goals for a new mom, don’t assume a 12-month work schedule if you’re only going to be there for nine.
The things my annual report didn’t take into account: I grew and fed a human with my body, I made my way out of my postpartum anxiety and sleep-deprived fog, all while making work calls on time, meeting deadlines, managing another employee, and finding my new rhythm as a working mom.
I’d call that pretty exceptional.
