Image: iStock
Pregnancy, albeit a beautiful time in the life of every woman, is a phase that is riddled with loads of discomfort as well. If you haven’t been pregnant yet and would scoff at the notion that baby-making would be anything but wonderful, you should ask your mother what a pain it can be! There’s heartburn, back pain, random spurts of lactation, pregnancy brain, and so much more!
Image: National Partnership for Women and Families/YouTube
Nonetheless, it’s still natural to look forward to being pregnant. But what if instead of the usual 36-40 weeks of being pregnant, you had to keep your bun in the oven for 260 weeks? Would you be able to swing that? Well, that is exactly what a really brave (and fictional) woman decided to do in a short satirical film (more like a public service announcement) released by the National Partnership for Women and Families.
Why did she do that, you ask? It’s simple. She stayed pregnant for a little more than five years so she does not have access to paid pregnancy leave. This PSA, entitled ‘A Long 5 Years’, is a witty yet thoughtful narrative of a Colorado (USA) paralegal who goes by the name Lauren and has been pregnant for exactly 260 weeks, five days, and nine hours.
The video starts with the narrator (Lauren) explaining why she has decided not to give birth to the munchkin (now monster truck-sized baby) inside her. “Lauren can’t afford to take time off to have her baby, so she’s decided to just stay pregnant. Neither Lauren nor her husband has paid family leave. He used up his vacation days caring for his sick mother, so she’s stockpiling her vacation and sick days so she can give birth when her baby is six years old.”
Image: National Partnership for Women and Families/YouTube
The video then goes on to show a very heavily pregnant woman comically making her way through day to day tasks such as taking the elevator or trying to pick up her phone off the ground.
Lauren also talks about how she and her husband had discussed moving to another country which offers paid leaves but could not do so as Lauren has been barred from flying since 2012 because of her pregnancy. Lauren quite wittily remarks that “Keeping a toddler in your uterus is a challenge”. But she’s quite optimistic and thinks of it as some extra time to bond with her precious one.
Here’s Lauren’s story:
While you are bound to laugh at the comical antics of Lauren, especially if you have been there, done that (been heavily pregnant that is), it also makes you dwell deeply on the problem of unpaid pregnancy leaves for working women in most developing as well a few developed countries. The situation is quite bad in such situations as most women have no option left but to re-join work within two to three weeks of their baby being born.
This puts most women in a dilemma where the lack of paid leaves forces them to choose between paying the bills and starting a family, even if both partners are employed.
However, this is not a problem that only affects pregnant women and new mothers. Even employees who need to take care of sick family members are equally affected as well as those who are fighting critical illnesses themselves.
Therefore, organizations, as well as the policy-making wings of each nation of the world, should take notice of this growing problem and should make conscious efforts to weed it out of the system. After all, the problem is real and so are its consequences. Everyone deserves good health, wealth, and happiness.
