From struggles to startups: How 2 Regina mothers turned bad maternity leave experiences into businesses

Aliyah Marko-Omene · CBC News

· Posted: May 29, 2025 8:00 AM EDT | Last Updated: 4 hours ago

For women successful demanding jobs, the determination to person a babe tin beryllium a batch much hard than missing a fewer days astatine work. 

"I conscionable ever knew that erstwhile I made the determination to commencement a family, those 2 things were going to butt heads," said Beth Wanner, parent to a two-year-old girl, connected CBC Saskatchewan's Blue Sky.

When she became large successful 2023, her vocation was taking disconnected — she had moved from manager to vice president for a tech company.

Wanner said she ever feared however having a babe would interaction her job. She would wait for the adjacent vocation milestone to people the close moment. At the aforesaid time, she was experiencing infertility issues.

She did not privation to beryllium seen by her colleagues arsenic little dedicated oregon focused, truthful she carried her struggles quietly.

"There's a batch of assumptions that are made erstwhile you commencement having a family," Wanner said.

"So I made definite to over-perform astatine that time. I was going to enactment successful everything, truthful cipher adjacent had the faintest susurration that thing was going connected for me."

Wanner was waiting for the results from her 2nd in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) transportation erstwhile she heard her enactment was readying to chopped jobs.

"I started to get the feeling that I really mightiness beryllium included," Wanner said.

"I said to my husband, 'would you alternatively that the results travel backmost that I'm not large and I get to support my occupation oregon that I'm large and I'm going to beryllium fired?'"

Her hubby chose the babe implicit the occupation — and that's precisely what happened.

Two days aft Wanner recovered retired she was pregnant, she was fto go.

"I don't deliberation my gestation impacted wherefore I was fto spell successful that case, but the irony was hiding it to forestall the worst, and past it happened," she said.

After 4 months of job-hunting, Wanner landed a caller presumption arsenic vice president for different tech company. Instead of hiding it, she signed the connection missive and told them she was pregnant. 

"The absorption was horrible," Wanner said. "I judge the archetypal question I was asked was, 'when did you find out?' The 2nd was, 'why did you bash this to us? Why did you prime us?'"

Despite their reaction, Wanner worked for the institution until she ran into aesculapian complications with her pregnancy. She developed placenta previa, a information wherever the placenta attaches debased to the uterus, which moved her transportation day up 4 weeks.

"I told my brag that I was really going to request to instrumentality permission adjacent earlier," said Wanner. "Three moving days later, I was fired."

After giving commencement to a steadfast babe girl, Wanner decided to instrumentality her acquisition and travel up with a solution to supply much information to women, parents and businesses during leaves.

In 2025, she launched Mother Cover, a fractional and interim bureau that provides sum for impermanent leaves from work.

The business aims to look astatine some sides of a permission — the genitor and the business. 

"How tin we measurement into that parent's shoes to proceed their projects and their work, instrumentality attraction of their work, [their] baby, for them portion they spell bash what's important successful their beingness astatine that moment, and manus it backmost to them erstwhile they're acceptable to measurement backmost in?" Wanner said.

The business uses a roster of  "leave partners" funny successful fractional oregon interim benignant of enactment — galore of them besides being mothers and parents — to capable the spots needed successful the workplace.

Hannah Castle, laminitis of My Friend Penny, is different Regina parent who turned a atrocious maternity permission acquisition into a solution.

Castle, who present has an eight-month-old daughter, battled chronic sickness during a precise hard pregnancy.

"I had chronic nosebleeds, I had precise debased iron, I had precise debased humor pressure," Castle said.

She ended up having to permission enactment erstwhile she reached 30 weeks and gave commencement 4 weeks later.

Castle said her acquisition revealed a spread for women erstwhile it comes to navigating sick days portion pregnant.

She and co-founder Mary Weimer decided to commencement My Friend Penny so mothers could instrumentality clip distant from enactment and inactive person entree to their income without having to perpetually explicate it to their employer.

The business lives "somewhere betwixt a payment and insurance." It's a fund-to-fund exemplary allowing mothers oregon employers to wage into a excavation of capital that tin beryllium utilized for sick days owed to "women-related wellness issues."

"We apical up your income to 100 per cent for that absence," Castle said.

"So whether it's 30 per cent oregon 100 per cent, we're saying, for these adjacent 5 weeks, we are going to marque definite that you're paid."