As a first-time working mom-to-be, I entered pregnancy with the somewhat naive idea that pregnancy wouldn’t be so hard. I thought somehow I’d be one of those lucky women who never throw up and feel fabulous throughout their whole pregnancy. That couldn’t have been farther from the truth.

Less than eight weeks into my pregnancy I was hit with extraordinary nausea. It didn’t just come in the morning and go away, it lasted all day and didn’t subside. It was so jolting that I could do nothing but sit on the floor next to the toilet or lie on the couch (not that either of those things helped me feel better). After a horrible night that resulted in the on-call doctor at my OB/GYN’s office prescribing medication at 5 a.m., I realized that I was now faced with the unimaginable task of dealing with my extreme nausea at work.

Following the usual prudence of a newly pregnant woman, I hadn’t planned to tell my office about my pregnancy until I was safely out of the first trimester. I decided to just go back to work, keep my news to myself and somehow get through the day while maintaining a façade that I’ve got it all together. You would think that I would know better. I’m a feminist, I’m on the board of directors for the Connecticut Chapter of NOW and I even work for the Connecticut Permanent Commission on the Status of Women (PCSW), a State agency that fights for women’s rights. If there was anyone who would support me, it would be the staff at my office. Still, I felt this need to put on a public front and make it appear that I was still the same old Michelle. Apparently, our society’s unrealistic expectation that women can “have and be it all” crept into my subconscious mind.

After about a week and a half of feeling like death at work because my nausea wouldn’t subside, I decided I had no other choice than to tell my boss. Of course, she completely understood, as did the rest of the staff at the office. My boss encouraged me to take time off from work if I feel really sick but since we don’t have a paid family and medical leave system in our country, I have to save all my paid time off for when the baby comes. Just like so many other working mothers, I can’t afford to take unpaid time off when our little one enters the world.

There’s a lot of talk about making workplaces more compassionate towards working moms by encouraging companies to provide flex-time, paid sick leave and other important mom-friendly reforms. But what about those of us whose pregnancies bring our lives to a standstill? Shouldn’t the fight for better workplace policies for working moms also apply to moms-to be?

Even before I became pregnant I was a big advocate for advancing the rights of working moms and now, as I find myself living through the same experiences as so many other women, my commitment to fighting for working moms grows even deeper. As things stand, working mothers are paid less than their childless female counterparts and are not guaranteed paid time off to care for their newborns. Twenty-two million working women have no paid sick days and if they do, many are unable to use their sick time to care for a sick child. For a country so proud of its commitment to family values, where’s the value in that?

Michelle Noehren is the Events & Special Projects Manager at the Connecticut Permanent Commission on the Status of Women. Additionally she serves on the Connecticut National Organization for Women’s Board of Directors.