(Photo Courtesy of Janet Lewis Matricciani)

Pregnancy can make you do funny things. It can also make those around you do funny things too, but mostly people ignore things they do not understand because they make them feel uncomfortable. So, for example, my difficult last name, Matricciani, is pronounced Mat+Rich+Cha+Ni (the Italian CC becomes a 'ch' sound and takes away any sound from the i). However, the number of times people have referred to me as “Matriani” is quite extraordinary. The double C is quite clearly there but when people don’t know what to do with it, they prefer to pretend it does not exist. With businessmen, pregnancy has the same reaction.

When I got pregnant with my first child in 1999, I was working for a consulting company in America. I was on a project with two senior partners we shall call Geoffrey and Philip. I knew I might need to be shown some understanding of my pregnant state, if my current all-day morning sickness was anything to go by. I would literally wake up and be sick over the toilet every morning before work. In our first meeting with the client, the agenda was to verify the scope of the project. I learned that, in only seven weeks, we were to analyze the client’s entire business, and make recommendations in three different areas. Each area had a series of complex questions about business strategy and direction that would need a lot of market and industry research in order to answer well, not to mention the time required to get to know the client and their inner workings and capabilities.

“Wow, we’re really going to have to kill ourselves to get this project done,” said Geoffrey, “even though we’ll be working late every night.”

I started to panic. I was two-months into pregnancy, and in the awful throwing-up every single day phase, and completely exhausted. I had to speak up.

“There’s something you guys should know,” I said. “I’m seven-weeks pregnant, and have to be a bit careful right now.”

“Janet, was this pregnancy planned or an accident?” Philip asked me. 

I was taken aback by the question, and muttered something about being married and thirty-two and ready for a baby, not that I should have had to justify my situation at all.

Geoffrey was no more empathetic: “Remember, if you are tired because you are pregnant and so can’t work late at night, you can always work the weekends instead. That’s fine with me.” This was years before the concept of remote work so that meant coming into the office every Saturday and Sunday.

I felt better already.

Eight weeks later, our client was ecstatic. “Hey, you guys are terrific,” he said, “I want to give you all praise where it’s due. This is fabulous work.”

I had been sick throughout the project. I was pregnant, nauseous, hungry, and desperate to sleep. I had spent the whole of the project completely exhausted as my body coped with the unusual hormonal changes that pregnancy brings. Sometimes I was sick four times in a morning. I had even had to ask a colleague flying to Atlanta each week if he could pick me up sick bags off the airplane, so that I would have something handy for accidents during the car journeys to the client. We had worked almost every weekend, as well as the July Fourth national public holiday. I could barely keep my head up and eyes open by the end of each day. However, the partners expected complete focus on the work at hand. 

The last day before the final presentation, I was due to organize the making of photocopies in the office. I woke up early, but my head was spinning. I just could not get out of bed. I spent the entire day on the phone to the young associate working with me, who called every fifteen minutes to check minor details as he managed the production process, while I gave instructions, my voice echoing round the inside of the toilet bowl. It couldn’t get any worse than this.

We completed the presentation and then just had to send a final write-up. I was required by the doctor to be on two days of bed rest but I still needed to go into the office to pick up my computer and files so I could get the write-up completed. Then, the project was done and I was done – the final nail in the coffin for me was the office senior partner suggesting I work on a project in the Dominican Republic next.

“Airlines don’t let you fly at seven months pregnant,” I said weakly.

“But you are only five months pregnant now and the project is eight weeks long so you will be fine,” he said. My heart sank. I didn’t want to be getting on and off planes, lifting a carry-on up into the hold and out twice a week while getting larger and more tired. It would hardly be healthy for me or the baby.

“Why don’t you want to go?” said Philip, “Are you afraid you might have the baby out there? You speak Spanish so it won’t be a problem.” I gave up on even trying to get him to see it from my perspective.

The next day, I requested a transfer to the London Office.

In those days, you were told you can have it all and indeed expected to make that happen. You could surely be a mother, pregnant, a businesswoman giving her all at work and be there for your husband with dinner on the table when you got home. Total empowerment! It was wonderful because your boss had the same expectations from you as from a man. Except it wasn’t because men weren’t (generally speaking) picking up kids from daycare or making dinner or (specifically speaking) dealing with pregnancy.

The second time I got pregnant, I was working for a financial services institution, running international deals. Just like with baby number one, I threw up every single day. Fortunately, unlike in consulting, I wasn’t working long hours or weekends, so I didn’t feel desperate to sleep all day even though I was more tired than normal.

Unfortunately, a trip to Asia was planned. We were going to visit Singapore, Taiwan, and Thailand to learn more about possible geographic expansion. As usual, I was the only female on the trip. I didn’t want to tell anyone I was pregnant given it was still the first trimester so I hid my nausea and sickness. No one had a clue that I was three months pregnant. It was an interesting trip, as we whizzed from meeting to meeting in a large white van. Even though I was exhausted, I could not bring myself not to see as much as possible (a desire for adventure was far too deeply ingrained in my soul), so when we got a break in Bangkok, I took a taxi to a local jade market. Then I couldn’t get a taxi back. I was desperate not to be late for the evening dinner meeting. I had to take a tuk-tuk, which is a mechanized three-wheel taxi that is low to the ground, the perfect height for inhaling all the polluting exhaust fumes from buses and cars next to you in the five-lane almost-standstill Bangkok traffic. I wrapped my scarf around my mouth and prayed that the pollution would not harm my unborn baby. Finally, I got back to the hotel, relieved to be only a few minutes late for dinner. The (non-pregnant) men had spent the time drinking at the hotel bar.

I was still going into the office every day right up until my due date and even the day after.

“When is your baby due again?” my boss asked. 

I told him. 

“But that’s yesterday!” he said, shocked. 

I explained that I felt fine and could still work.

“But we don’t want your water breaking in the middle of a meeting or you giving birth at the office!” he said, turning white. “That would be awful for everyone here.” 

Oh, I thought he was concerned for me. Whoops. 

He sent me home immediately and asked me not to come in again until after maternity leave. The baby was seventeen days late so that just meant more time at home with my three-year-old and keeping deals going remotely. Luckily, Blackberries had just been introduced at the company so it was relatively easy to stay in touch.

Some years later, when I was working for a bank on the West Coast and my boys were five and two, the COO would ask me every day about my children, and I would answer every day about how the strategic planning process, or credit card, or auto finance potential partnership work were going. He didn’t pay me much attention on the business front. It was very frustrating. 

It turned out there was an opening to report to him to run the direct deposits business. I was thrilled and requested a meeting with him. However, he told me that he would only consider someone who had run a deposits business before so I could not even be a candidate or interviewed for the position even though I already had experience managing various financial services P&Ls. Next thing I knew, the COO gave the job to a young financial analyst who worked directly for him. This analyst had never run any kind of business, let alone a deposits one, had over fifteen years less experience than I did, and had never managed more than one or two people either. Welcome to being a woman in business yet again, I thought to myself. I knew I had to leave because my career was going nowhere and my brain would petrify if I stayed. However, I was five months visibly pregnant (third child). Who would hire me? 

As it happened, I got a phone call from a head hunter about being the head of strategy at one of the UK’s largest banks that had principally a large overseas business. This led to me flying to London to interview with the head of HR and the current Chief Strategy Officer, who was moving on to a new role. The meeting went brilliantly. 

They did notice I was pregnant and the female CHRO said, “You do realize it is a high-travel position. Will you be able to manage it when you have a baby?”

I explained that my husband stayed home to look after the kids, so I would be fine, and had already had roles elsewhere that required travel with great success.

“But how long will you need to not travel internationally after the baby comes?” she asked. “We need someone who is able travel pretty quickly."

“Well four months would be good,” I said.

“Are you sure that would be enough?” she said, disbelievingly.

Yet another way it is disappointing what a capable woman business leader has to deal with, even from women. Shouldn’t it be MY decision how long I want to avoid travel? And, until men can actually give birth themselves, shouldn’t all businesses support women who biologically do need to have space to give birth, recuperate, and nurse their babies? I have a friend who worked for Goldman Sachs and she was taking calls even as she went into labor. Her kid came prematurely (and has certain disabilities due to this) and I personally believe that the stress she was under had a lot to do with it. It’s bad pretty much the world over (excepting Scandinavia and France), but worse in the US.

Anyway, I passed the interview and was the only candidate. Furthermore, a senior person at that bank knew me well from a past job experience. He, too, put in a good word for me.

Everything looked set for success. All I needed to do was to come back to London one more time and meet the CEO of the bank. This was meant to be a slam dunk and just a token meeting for a final seal of approval. I was seven months pregnant so just at the limit of being able to fly but I could squeeze in the trip. 

The meeting went terribly. The CEO was aggressive from the moment I walked in his office. “You’re carrying a lot!” he exclaimed. Well, no one had offered to take my coat or backpack, so I had those with me, plus my handbag and I had a notepad out to write on as it had proved useful in my meeting with his other team members. He was right! I was carrying a lot.

We sat down to chat.

“What’s in there?” he asked, pointing at my stomach. He might have been trying to be funny but it didn’t feel like it.

Now, all kinds of hilarious answers came to mind immediately because “funny” is usually the first word others use to describe me. “This is just my beer belly”, “I am having a massive allergic reaction to airplane food”, “I wondered where I had put my football” and so on. I managed to mutter something about having a baby. There were no follow-up questions.

Meanwhile, for the first time in my life in an interview, I prayed to God to please send some positive energy to this room so my meeting goes well. God was not listening. Normally, I am a star in meetings because I am smart and funny and have personality, but nothing was going well on this day.

“What do you think we should do to expand?” asked the CEO.

I had done my “homework” (meaning researched the company) so, as with every interview, I was prepared. I suggested starting a credit card business in China.

“Oh no, that’s a terrible idea,” said the CEO, “It’s a cash economy.”

It went downhill from there. When I left, I knew it was over. I had never experienced such aggression in an interview process. If you don’t want a woman, don’t bloody interview one. Or rather, quit your job in shame and learn how to be a better human being.

A month later, the bank announced that they were launching a credit card business in…you guessed it…China, of course. Clearly, this had been planned for months before I mentioned it.

I didn’t get the job, obviously, but what is really hypocritical is that this CEO got an important award years later in recognition of his work promoting women. The irony was not lost on me. In an article in 2009, a reporter wrote a glowing review, stating “though his executive team is uniformly male, he does have two women non-executives on his Board.” Yippee. No women actually running the company at senior levels but never mind because a couple come to Board meetings. 

Nowadays, they say things are better but they aren’t really. For example, investment banks still require seventeen hours of work - and I mean 10AM-3AM – six days a week and complain if their employees take seven minutes off during that timeframe. How is a working parent expected to do this and have time for their family, let alone a pregnant one?

The solution, of course, is to play the best hand you can with the cards you’re dealt. Find the balance that works for you. The employer won’t change. If you are endangering the health of your baby by the intense culture of the company, it’s time to do something else. No job is worth the health of a child (or your own). 

It is easy to forget this during a demanding high-pressure career. Don't!

Janet Lewis Matricciani is a two-time CEO who has worked all over the world and is multilingual, now sharing her business lessons publicly. She can be reached at [email protected].