'Bleeding at my desk’: The workplace fight for leave after miscarriage

It was the worst day of Anna Kratovil’s life. After weeks of bleeding and hospital visits, she learnt her baby son, Alfie, was dying inside her. Then as she arrived home, she learnt she had lost her job.

Already feeling numb from the shock of the first brutal, life-changing news, as Ms Kratovil was delivered the second one, she had started to laugh in disbelief.

“It was the double whammy of losing your baby and your career,” the 39-year-old told Yahoo News Australia.

“I actually started to laugh because of the disbelief. You know when you’re in shock and you laugh or cry, I think I did actually go, ‘This could be the worst day of my life’."

The grief-stricken mother was “dumped” there and then and never even went back into her workplace where she had been for the past four years.

Half her workplace was being made redundant from their jobs but due to the time she had been taking off for hospital visitations, Ms Kratovil was excluded from discussions others had been privy to.

"They didn’t think about me as a person, I was just a number,” she said.

“That hurt. They could have been compassionate. They could have let me lose my baby, grieve my baby, come back to work and ... let me speak to HR.

“I was in shock... Wasn’t my employer meant to be supporting an employee who’s in the middle of losing her baby? Aren’t they meant to be supporting and caring about their staff? I was just dumped.”

‘Too terrified to take leave’

Australian miscarriage support charity Pink Elephants says Ms Krotovil’s experience of not receiving support from her workplace is not unique.

Under the Fair Work Act, there are currently no entitlements for employees grappling with pregnancy loss –– whether that be through miscarriage –– the loss of a baby before 20 weeks of pregnancy –– or stillbirth –– the loss of a baby after 20 weeks.

With no bereavement leave available under Australia’s workplace laws, many are forced to take personal leave, and in some cases even continue to work whilst literally losing their babies.

One woman who shared her story with Pink Elephants Support Network on the condition of anonymity said: “I sat at my desk bleeding, losing my baby, too terrified to take leave.”

Others detailed returning to work as their bodies dealt with the physical fallout of what’s commonly referred to as ‘D&C’ –– dilation and curettage, an operation commonly performed after a miscarriage which involves scraping the uterus.

Another employee who had been trying for a baby and had used up all her sick leave days for fertility treatment ended up miscarrying then had to have the D&C procedure performed before returning to work the next day, despite the fact she was “still bleeding and cramping heavily”.

For many singles and couples dealing with pregnancy loss there was an additional “shroud of secrecy”, with employees often feeling “more entitled to take leave for a runny nose than they do for losing a baby”, Pink Elephants Support Network SEO Samantha Payne says.

“Having to use personal leave does not validate the unique nature of the grief that a couple experiences when they have lost a child, and further magnifies their grief and mental health issues."

According to Pink Elephants, every day in Australia 282 couples experience a miscarriage. The charity is among those who have been lobbying the Australian Federal Government to amend the Fair Work Act to include two days paid bereavement leave to help employees “physically and emotionally manage their loss”.

Figures released by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare in 2018 found about seven in every 1000 births in Australia will be a stillbirth.

Another prominent voice for families impacted by pregnancy loss has been Labor Senator Kristina Keneally whose own daughter was stillborn in 1999 –– an experience the senator detailed in her 2018 maiden speech.

Earlier this month on October 15 –– International Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day –– the Senator again renewed her call for employees enduring pregnancy loss to have the same paid parental leave as other parents.

“While I can understand that people may instinctively think there’s no need for paid parental leave if a baby has died, I would invite them to consider that it is parental leave, not baby leave, and parents of stillborn babies are parents," she told SBS News.

"The mother has given birth and must recover physically. The parents have parental responsibility, like organising autopsies, funerals and burial or cremation. They also are dealing with a singular and profound grief.

"The simple fact is that parents of stillborn babies are often physically and psychologically incapable of working at any productive capacity in the weeks and months after their baby’s death."

‘We lost all our hopes and dreams’

After losing her own baby son at 19 weeks and five days, Ms Kratovil was consumed by “a cloud of grief” for a long time. There was no hope of her beginning the search for a new job.

“All your hopes and dreams and plans have all been blown up,” she said.

“You loved that baby. As soon as you know you’re pregnant, you love that baby. You love that baby because you’re its mother.”

Six years on from that traumatic experience of finding out she was losing both her baby and her job in the same day, the Sydney mum has become an ambassador for the Pink Elephants Support Network.

The now mum to three young children helps other women and couples cope with the grief of pregnancy loss –– the pain of which is often exacerbated by feeling like their grief for a child who was never born is somehow “invalid”.

“I’m speaking to women every week going through a miscarriage and they’re just so relieved to talk to someone about it and also someone who’s been through it because [miscarriage] is so isolating and it really affects everyone’s health,” Ms Kratovil explained.

Since it was launched last year, the peer-support advocacy group has been fighting to have miscarriage recognised under the bereavement act not just so employees no longer have to resort to taking personal or sick leave after losing a baby, but so their loss feels validated in a way that assists the parent with a healthy, natural grieving process.

“You’re just expected to keep it a secret and just say, ‘oh I’ve got to take personal or sick leave’ but you’re not sick and that’s not the point,” Ms Kratovil told Yahoo News Australia.

“282 women a day are losing their babies in Australia to miscarriage. So you will know someone in [your workplace] will be going through it or have gone through it.”

The two days of bereavement leave which Pink Elephants has been lobbying for would give parents “just a bit of understanding and validation” and help them “own” their grief, Ms Kratovil said.

“You have still lost a baby no matter how long it’s been,” she explained.

“We still lost a baby. We still lost all our hopes and dreams. We need to take time off work to process, to grieve, as our partners do.”

Australia-based readers seeking support for pregnancy loss can do so through the Pink Elephants Support Network website.

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