Job hunting on maternity leave: what I learned after being made redundant at 34 weeks pregnant

When I was 34 weeks pregnant with my second child, I was made redundant. In my initial panic, I started to look for a job. I've worked in places who have hired heavily pregnant women before so it didn't seem too much of a reach, but when I sat back and thought about it, it wasn't what I wanted. I wanted to take the original duration of my maternity leave as planned. I thought that after having a gap on my CV which now read "maternity leave", I would have a lot of explaining to do and might not make it past the CV reviewer, because I was wary of unconscious (and conscious) bias towards working mothers. I did, however, update my CV and start applying for jobs, stating clearly that I had been on maternity leave and proudly declaring all of the skills that I'd gained and developed during that time. My next panic came when I had to figure out how I was going to get to the interviews with a three-year-old and a nine-month-old at home. Especially the nine-month-old who refused a bottle. I'm not going to lie, it was