I took up an internship in the spring working on an urban farm. I then found out I was pregnant but I still toughed it out. We had long hard days working in the sun with no breaks and I was constantly exposed to soil likely infected with toxoplasmosis from the multitude of stray cats that hung out in and used the farm land as a litter box. Toxoplasmosis can cause brain damage and blindness in babies when acquired from the mother so I really felt that I couldn’t justify exposing myself to this even with proper protective equipment. 

Anyways, I quit this morning and I very calmly and politely explained that I didn’t feel comfortable working there anymore because of my pregnancy. The farm director didn’t take it that well and made me feel really awful for quitting and basically said I was screwing them over. It would be a different story if I was just being lazy but I was putting my pregnancy at risk here. 

Anyways I obviously left feeling pretty down on myself. I told my mother what happened and she made things so much worse. She basically said I needed to call her and apologize for quitting and beg her to take me back because they offered a $1000 stipend at the end of the season. Mind you, with the amount of hours I was working, it comes out to being far under minimum wage to do that work. When I told her I was just upset and looking for support she just began to ignore me. 

I thought long and hard about this and tried so hard to validate my own feelings and decision but I realized that because of my mom invalidating me and being emotionally unavailable my whole life, it’s caused me to be insecure in almost every decision I make. My mom raised me to believe that I wasn’t making the right decision unless I did exactly what she told me to do. I know that’s absurd but it’s hard to dissociate with that feeling when it’s been ingrained in my mind for 24 years. I keep going back to her for support thinking “this time it will be different” and it never is.