Today in Australia on one of those current affairs shows they showed how pregnant women were discriminated against in the workforce, where one woman was dismissed after her employer found she was pregnant and the other was told, either keep the baby and lose your job or lose the baby and keep your job. Well I've had my fair share of discrimination whilst pregnant with my first child in the workforce.

But with my second pregnancy I was a full time virtual assistant. None of my clients even knew I was pregnant until I emailed them a month before I was due to go in for my c/section informing them that I will not be available for six days. My work never faltered, my quality of work never diminished. They were gobsmacked when I told them I was going into hospital. They didn't even get a chance to try to discriminate against me.

I also am not discriminated against for being the stereotypical blonde, who must be dumb of course, because I have long blonde hair, nope, several of my clients have no idea what I even look like.

Then I came out of hospital and went straight back to work, picking up one local client's work off my porch, the day I came home from hospital. No maternity leave for us VAs, but I seemlessly continued on with my work and no client has ever had cause to complain as I work around my children now.

Being a pregnant VA and having no discrimination targeted at me was a major benefit of being a virtual assistant that I really never thought of before until I saw that show today.

Wow! What terrible stories. Here in the US, it is illegal to overtly discriminate against a pregnant woman. Meaning, you can't be fired just for being pregnant as long as it doesn't affect your work. I worked until the day before my daughter was born (24 years ago) and took off, by choice, about a month before my son was born (20 years ago).

But, working from home, no matter where you live does give you much more choice and freedom!

If anyone would like to pursue being a VA, here's an article from the SOHO site: Work from Home as a Virtual Assistant

Being my own boss was one of the best decisions I ever made. I do not have kids, but I took a look at how I would want to live my life as I begin to settle down and get ready for raising a family. I decided to pursue ventures that would allow me to work from home, whatever hours I choose to work.

And even though I do not have kids, being able to pick up my businesses and go somewhere without having to ask off or worry about what my boss will think is a great freedom to have.

In the US we also have the Americans with Disabilities act, which is a Federal act saying that for example if your pregnant and ordered to bedrest for example, they can't fire you. There are of course qualifiers, the company has to be over a certain size to be forced to comply with this, if you have sick time and vacation time, they use that during your time off. If you go beyond 3 months, I am pretty sure they have the right to let you go. I think you have to be employed non stop for one year full time to be eligble for leave.

Unfortunately companies here have found a way to get around this and look for an excuse to fire people, I used to work for one who was like that.