Kim got a job working in marketing for a government agency in New Mexico four months before giving birth to her daughter in April 2020. She requested to take as much leave as possible from her job after giving birth and was approved for one month of unpaid leave just two days before her due date. “My one month of leave was nowhere near enough,” wrote Kim in a Medium post. “Despite the fact that I was working from home, caring for my infant in the early months of her life while continuing to perform my job was still the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do.”
On top of recovering from a c-section and caring for her daughter’s health needs, which included feeding issues and acid reflux, Kim had to keep up with her work duties on just two to three hours of sleep a night. She speaks out about the importance of family and medical leave so that no parent has to go through the stress she endured after giving birth. “I was forced to go back to work far sooner than I was ready to because my growing family needed the income to survive — a choice no working parent should face,” she wrote.
