I was working for business that was making bracelets, key chains, and other jewelry and accessories. The company was really growing and doing very well. They had weeks where there was over 10k in sales.

After working for a few months, I was doing very well had no problems making the products (all was done by hand and had to be pulled very tight to meet standards). We had another girl who got hired the day before I did who was also doing fairly well come in one day and say how she was pregnant. The owner pretended she was happy for her, but the next day told her she was fired for bad job performance.

About six weeks after she was fired the owner, who at this point had tried to become friends with all the females (because she didn’t really have any outside of work), admitted to two of us that she fired the other girl because she got pregnant before her! A few months went on and the owner found out she was pregnant. About eight weeks later I also found out that I was pregnant, and I knew better than to say anything. I waited till I started to show before letting anyone at work in on it; I knew as soon as the owner found out she would find a way to fire me as she is the very selfish self-centred type who needs all eyes on her all the time. Then the day came one of my co-workers guessed out load that I was pregnant and she heard it. I knew that was the first day of the end of my job.

I have carpel tunnel, and was able to do my job with out any problems until I hit about 20 weeks and my body started to retain water EVERYWHERE, and my hand became very weak. It was getting hard for me to make certain products but others I had no issue at all. She started to catch on that I was having a hard time with things and made sure to only give me orders to do that I was struggling with. It got to the point where nothing I did would pass a quality check (by her) and she fired me for not being able to perform, even though we had plenty of products I could have worked on with no issues. Also, between snow days from school for my kids and doctors appointments for me, I really was not employable by anyone until after I had my baby. I lost four months of pay that I planned on having before my baby was born. And here’s the kicker – they now have a machine that is foot powered to make the same products I got fired over.