I told my boss I was pregnant. He said, “Congrats! Take leave anytime.” So I requested maternity leave, 12 weeks, paid.

It was approved. A month later, I was shocked to see my payslip: zero. Panicked, I called my boss.

He said, “Oh, I told HR that you resigned.”

I froze. “What? I never resigned,” I said, heart racing.

He replied casually, “Yeah, but you won’t be coming back soon, right? So I figured it’d be easier this way. HR processes are complicated when someone’s on extended leave.”

My hands trembled.

I was eight months pregnant, alone in a small apartment, and I had just lost my income. I tried to stay calm. “That’s illegal,” I said, not even sure if I was right.

“You can’t just do that.”

He chuckled. “It’s done. I don’t want to argue, but I suggest you move on.

It’s not personal.”

But it was personal. I had been working at that job for five years. I wasn’t just another employee—I had helped them land their biggest client.

I had trained most of the current team. I was loyal, always stayed late, never complained. And now, because I was about to become a mom, I was discarded like old paperwork.

I hung up and cried. Not because of the money—though that was terrifying—but because of the betrayal. I had trusted him.

I thought he respected me. And now I was here, eight months pregnant, no salary, no job, and no idea what to do next. The next day, I dragged myself to the HR office.

My belly was heavy, my back hurt, but I needed answers. The receptionist gave me a confused look. “You’re… resigning in person too?”

“No,” I said firmly.

“I never resigned. I’m on approved maternity leave. Or I was, until someone falsified my status.”

She called in the HR manager.

After some checking, she came back with a file. “It says here you submitted a resignation email.”

“I didn’t.”

She blinked. “It came from your company address.”

“I haven’t logged into that account in weeks.

I’m on leave.”

Her face changed. “Then someone sent it in your name.”

Now things were serious. They launched an internal investigation.

And just like that, things snowballed. IT traced the email to my boss’s IP. They confirmed he had logged into my email using an old password he had from when I first joined.

He’d sent a resignation note to HR from my account, marked it as urgent, and deleted the sent mail. Then he approved it himself. I was livid.

I wanted to sue, but I didn’t have the money. So I posted about it online. Not naming names, just sharing my story.

It went viral. Thousands of women commented. Some had similar experiences.

Others offered help. A few lawyers even messaged me offering free consultations. One, a kind woman named Meera, took my case pro bono.

We filed a wrongful termination suit. Meanwhile, someone from the company—someone I didn’t even know that well—leaked internal emails showing my boss talking about how “maternity leave was bad for business.” That he “couldn’t afford to lose a seat for three months when projects were stacked.” It was all in writing. Public pressure grew.