Thomas Jones Facebook ad: “My Maternity Leave Ended and I Didn't Go Back to Work”

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1544243890620875

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What am I doing 24 hours postpartum sitting next to a smelly homeless at the courthouse filing for child support when I should be home recovering with my baby. I'm still bleeding. My stitches haven't dissolved. My milk is leaking through my shirt and there is a woman across from me who got here at 4 AM just to keep her spot in line. My daughter is 24 hours old and she's in her car seat on the floor of a government building because I have nobody to leave her with. I need to back up. My name is Destiny. I'm 26. Up until five months ago I was a receptionist at a chiropractor's office making 14 an hour. Before that I worked at a daycare. Before that I cashiered at Target all through community college which I never finished because I ran out of money after three semesters. When I got pregnant Marcus told me he'd be there. Told me we'd figure it out. Told me everything was going to be fine. At seven months he stopped answering the phone. At eight months his mother told me he moved to Houston. At nine months I had my baby girl alone in a hospital room with my mama on speakerphone because she lives four hours away and couldn't get off work. I named her Nyla. She's perfect. Ten fingers. Ten toes. These big brown eyes that stare at me like I'm the whole world. And I'm the whole world that has 31 dollars in her checking account right now. The hospital bill was 6,400 after insurance. I'm on a payment plan that takes 80 a month. My rent is 975. My car note is 289. Insurance. Phone. Electric. Formula for when my supply drops because I'm too stressed to produce enough milk. Diapers. Wipes. I have six weeks of unpaid maternity leave. Six weeks to figure out how I'm going to survive before I have to go back to answering phones at the chiropractor's office and leave my six-week-old with someone I can barely afford to pay. The math doesn't work. I've done it every night at 3 AM while I'm feeding Nyla in the dark. It has never once come out right. That's why I was at the courthouse. Because the state says Marcus owes his daughter something even if he doesn't think so. I sat in that plastic chair for four hours. Nyla slept for two of them and screamed for the other two. I changed her on the bathroom floor because there was no changing table. I breastfed her on a bench in the hallway because there was nowhere private and I was past the point of caring who saw. The woman next to me was named Trina. She looked like she'd been through this before. Calm. Patient. She had a folder with paperwork already organized. I had a crumpled envelope with notes I wrote on the back. When Nyla started crying the second time Trina reached into her bag and handed me a pacifier still in the package. Didn't say a word. Just handed it to me. I almost broke right there. After I got called in and filled out everything and was told it would be four to eight weeks before anything happened, I walked back to the lobby feeling like I'd been hit by a truck. Trina was still there. Waiting for her own hearing. I sat down next to her because I didn't have the energy to walk to my car yet. She looked at Nyla sleeping in her car seat. Then she looked at me. "How old?" "Fifteen days." She closed her eyes and shook her head. "I was you. Three years ago. Sat in that same chair with my son in his car seat. He was eleven days old. His father was in the wind. I had 40 to my name." I just stared at her. "I came here four times. Four hearings. They garnished his wages eventually but by the time the first check came I was already three months behind on everything." She paused. "That's not what saved me though." I didn't say anything. Just waited. She pulled her phone out of her bag. "About two years ago my cousin called me. She said Trina I found something and I need you to watch a video. I told her I don't have time for internet nonsense. She said just watch it. The whole thing. If it doesn't work I'll never mention it again." Trina looked down at Nyla. "I watched it that night after my son went to sleep. Did what it said the next morning. Took a few minutes on my phone. I didn't understand how it worked. Something about these big companies making money off our phones and there's a way to get a piece of it. I don't know the details." She looked at me. "All I know is that within a few weeks I stopped counting days until the child support hit. Because it didn't matter anymore." I stared at her. "What do you mean it didn't matter?" "I mean I don't need it. It comes and I put it away for my son's future. But I don't need it to survive anymore. I haven't needed it in over a year." I looked at her clothes. Clean. Put together. Not expensive but not struggling. Her bag wasn't fancy but it wasn't falling apart. Her nails were done. Nothing flashy. Just maintained. She looked like a woman who was breathing. I looked like a woman who was drowning. "Why are you here then?" I asked. "Modifying the custody agreement. Different hearing. Same building." She smiled. "I don't sit in the child support line anymore, baby." She pulled up something on her phone. "I'm not supposed to show people. My cousin said every time too many people find out the companies figure out how to shut it down. But I've been watching you sit in that chair all morning with your two-week-old baby on a courthouse floor. And I'm not going to walk out of here without showing you." She held her phone between us. "Watch this tonight. After she goes to sleep. The whole thing. Don't stop it because it sounds too good. Just watch it the way I did." I drove home. It took me twenty minutes because I had to pull over twice. Once because Nyla was crying. Once because I was. That night I fed her at 2 AM in the dark like I always do. Got her back to sleep. Sat on my bed with the lamp on and opened the video on my phone. I'm not going to tell you what was in it. I couldn't explain it if I tried. I answer phones for a living. I didn't finish community college. But the next morning I did what it said. Nyla was asleep on my chest. It took a few minutes. I felt stupid. Almost closed out twice. That evening I checked. Something was there that wasn't there before. Not a lot. But something. And it showed up while I was changing diapers and warming bottles and rocking a newborn to sleep. By the end of the second week I stopped checking every hour because the numbers were making my hands shake. Not the way they shook when I saw the hospital bill. A different kind of shaking. My maternity leave ended last week. I didn't go back. I called the office and told them I wasn't coming back. My voice was shaking when I said it. My boss asked if everything was okay. I said everything is okay for the first time in a long time. I'm home with my baby. Not because someone is helping me. Not because the child support finally came through. It still hasn't. Four to eight weeks turned into twelve and counting. I'm home because the math works now. For the first time in my adult life. Nyla is two months old. She has everything she needs. Real diapers not the cheap ones that leak. Formula for backup that isn't the store brand I was watering down. A crib instead of the pack-n-play I got from Facebook Marketplace with the broken latch. And I'm here. Every morning. Every night. Every feeding. Every smile. I'm not dropping her off at six weeks old with a stranger so I can go answer phones for 14 an hour. Last week I took her to get her ears pierced. Little gold studs. I held her while she cried and I whispered "Mama's got you baby. Mama's got you." ❤️ I don't know how long that video will stay up. Trina told me her cousin said it gets taken down all the time. Something about the companies losing money from it. I don't understand all that. I answer phones for a living. But I know what my life looked like in that courthouse hallway. Milk leaking through my shirt. Stitches still in. Changing my newborn on a bathroom floor. And I know what it looks like now. If you're sitting somewhere right now doing math at 3 AM that never comes out right. If you're about to leave your baby with a stranger because you can't afford to stay home. If you're bleeding on a plastic chair in a government building because the father of your child decided he didn't want to be one. Watch the video. The whole thing. Same one Trina's cousin showed her. Same one Trina showed me on that phone in the courthouse lobby. If the link works it's still up. I almost didn't sit back down next to her. Almost just walked to my car and drove home and kept doing the math that never works. I'm glad I sat down. 🙏 Tap below while it's still up 👇

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daily-next.com

My Maternity Leave Ended and I Didn't Go Back to Work

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