USA - How long will your maternity leave be?

tropical1982

I've previously done the max 12 weeks allowed by FMLA, but only about 8 of it paid.  My new job allows up to 17 weeks but only 10 weeks paid (including vacation).

jengibre_zorro

I will be taking the max allowed, which is 12 weeks, mostly unpaid.  

kiwi2628

I don't get any paid (although my H gets 2 weeks paid paternity!), but I plan on taking 12-16 weeks. I am a veterinarian at a multi-vet practice, so they will hold my job as long as I (reasonably) want, and I dont want to go back to a job where I am shaking peoples hands all the time during the height of flu season with a new baby, so I would rather go back Feb 1st than Jan 1st.

ETA: I forgot to mention I DO have STD so that helps

knottieamusements

I’m planning to take the max allowed, which is 12 weeks. I also have a short-term disability plan which will offset part of the income loss.  

I actually disclosed that I am pregnant to my HR person early this month; she helped make sure I was signed up for insurance in a way that maximizes my benefits while out. She also said that when I “officially” notify the firm, she’ll walk me through all the details.  (I asked her to keep the cat in the bag until April when I announce.)

bel194

I'll get 12 weeks, 60% paid after vacation/pto is taken. There might also be an option to go back part time for a few weeks to start, but I'm not sure how this would work with health insurance stuff. 

tinattt23

No idea. I work at a small company so FMLA doesn’t apply. They have no set leave policy. Last time they “let” me take all my PTO from 2016 and 2017 for a whopping 5 weeks of paid time. I could have used California’s short term disability for partial pay but just decided to go back since I work from home anyways. I want to find a way to take longer this time, but I’ll have to see what my boss comes up with after we talk. 

nmadjeski

I'm going to take the max allowed witch is 12 weeks. I also have STD and PTO/sick that I can use that will get me paid most of my leave. 

sammierose464

I'm hoping for 8-10 weeks total. We are putting money aside from our tax return and my yearly bonus to offset the time I won't get paid. We only have an STD plan that allows 6-8 weeks (depending on c-section), but that does pay 100%. My husband can also take 12 weeks FMLA (unpaid), he will probably take 2 weeks off.

Thankfully, I work for an auto supplier in Detroit. Since the "Big 3" all shut down from Christmas to New Years, I also get those days as vacation. So I'll have that full week off paid. I'm thinking I'll go back that first week of January depending on when I go out.

sliztee

I'm gonna take my PTO payout and toss the deuces for good!

bel194

bel194 said:

I'll get 12 weeks, 60% paid after vacation/pto is taken. There might also be an option to go back part time for a few weeks to start, but I'm not sure how this would work with health insurance stuff. 

I just realized that I'll also have 5 paid holidays during that time, so there's another paid week there. The nice thing is that I'll also be able to be home during all of DD's holiday breaks as she will be starting kindergarten in the fall.  

lest12

My company has a very generous 6-month policy.  4 weeks are paid, I should be able to scrape up another 3 weeks of PTO. 

As for how long I will actually take, DH and I are going to just start banking as much as we can right now, and see how long we can afford to be without my salary.

krzyriver

  Whatever PTO I earn from now until then plus a week or so unpaid. Can't afford to take the full 12 weeks of FMLA if most of it will be unpaid. It will probably amount to just a few weeks....   

KFrob

I'm going to try and take the full 12, I think I might be able to take it all paid with STD, 4 weeks parental leave, and PTO time.  DH also gets 4 weeks parental leave so we'll keep LO home a bit longer than the 12 with him being on Mr Mom duty for a few weeks.  

chopchop25

I think we get 6-8 weeks short term disability (8 if c-section), then we get another 8 for extended family leave all paid. Our company instated this a little over a year ago, and I'm so thankful. H works here too and also gets 8 weeks. +we'll add our PTO onto it.

jaylii

I'll be taking the max allowed by law (FMLA) which is 12 weeks. I have to use accrued sick and vacation time so not all of it will be paid. 

pebbledam

I'm not sure yet, but it's giving me a lot of anxiety. I told myself that I'm not going to get too worked up about it until after I see this little jellybean on u/s (on Thursday). I work for a Fortune 500 company as an agreement employee and it doesn't appear that I qualify for STD through my work. They have no paid parental leave, so it looks like I'm facing a completely unpaid leave. I'll start digging in more next month to figure out a better plan. 

nayyohme

So my STD covers 6-8 weeks. Two of those weeks is unpaid which is ridiculous, so I'll have about 80 hrs of PTO by then to cover me for the first two weeks and then 4-6 weeks of STD which pays out 60%. If I can manage to save enough, I'll take extra time off. At this point that's all that I can definitely take off though.

cdepperschmidt

I will take the max FMLA of 12 weeks. With DS I only took 9 and I regret it. He ended up getting RSV the first week of daycare and was in the hospital the 2nd I was supposed to be back at work. I don’t actually think the RSV was from daycare, but it sucked. I’m not sure how much will be paid/unpaid. I’ll have to look at my leave. In my school system other teachers (including DH) can donate leave to me. 

jellybelly114

Not sure. None of our FMLA is paid so I will have to use a combination of my sick leave and annual leave to avoid no income. DH and I both work for the government so it's the same with him. I'll probably take 12 weeks since the office is dead in Nov/Dec anyway due to holidays. Maybe I can even take more time. Not sure how long husband will take. What are others doing for paternity?  

pumpkinpancake

I’ll probably take 18 weeks, which is about the max for a regular uncomplicated pregnancy/delivery in my state with FMLA and OFLA. Unfortunately, all of it except for what I cover with sick and vacation time will be unpaid, but we will save up as much as we can over the next year so that we will hopefully be ok. Not to get political, but this whole topic just gets me so angry that the US doesn’t care enough to provide some form of paid family leave like basically every other developed country in the world does. 

tinattt23

@jellybelly114 Last time DH took the first two weeks off with me and then took an additional week the week I went back to work. It was nice having him home as a settled into work again. He used PTO. Last year his company changed to an unlimited vacation policy and I think I remember him saying something about paternity leave. So we’ll have to look into it to decide what we’ll do this time. 

midwestmom12

I’ll take my max of 12 weeks. Through PTO and STD is should all be paid leave. 

ashin121

I'll take 12 weeks off. 6 weeks covered through STD. I already have enough PTO/sick time to cover me for another 8 weeks. Last time, I only was able to take 9 weeks off and I regretted it. I only had enough PTO for 3 more weeks beyond the 6 weeks STD. Around that time, you've just healed and you finally start to enjoy your baby.  I was so mad at our FMLA coverage in the USA. It still makes me so upset. 

shortstack930

I’ll take the max 12 weeks of FMLA. I should have about 6-7 weeks of PTO at that point so I’ll use that and my mom works for the same company and has been saving her PTO so she can donate it to me to cover the rest. 

vizslalady

I am very lucky. My company’s maternity policy is 16 weeks paid. I’ll take all 16 weeks. My husband will get 4 weeks of paternity leave, too. Honestly, we can’t complain at all for what is typical in the US.

ladyofarlington

I am very fortunate to have 16 weeks of paid family leave. Additionally, I believe I can also start maternity leave by using a week of PTO to cover the one week elimination period before 5 weeks of STD kicks in at 60% of my salary. In total, I think I may be able to take 22 weeks? I need to look into this to confirm the accuracy.


 @vizslalady - curious if we work for the same company 

Mylitta

I'll take the full 12. I get 6w paid and then use sick for the rest. I don't think I'll have to tap into vacation. But it's there if... H gets 4w paid. Last time he got 2w, but he's recently started a new job. It's terrible that he's 'fortunate' because he doesn't have to use vacation.

kimmerann3

I am a teacher in VA. I will take 12 weeks. It will be partially paid with however many sick and personal days I have left at that point. I also have short term disability for the very reason of maternity leave and will save up the extra $$ we need. I wish I could take more than 12 weeks but it’s just not feasable. Plus when I get back to work I will be totally out of days and will have to take a day without pay if anything comes up with my kids that I need to stay home. 

princessandthegator

This is the topic that makes me most upset, Florida is the worst. So I work for the school district in my area, we get 6 weeks at 60% pay for vaginal delivery and 8 weeks at 60% for c section...unless of course you give birth in the summer at which point you are deemed unemployed and get NOTHING. NOTHING. This happened with DD, I was pretty irate (STD is actually a supplement, so I was PAYING for something I wasn't gonna be eligible to cash out on). I have to save sick days and use those because this is Florida and procreating is a choice. 

That being said, my husband has a lot of days as does my father in law. So I'll be using some of theirs plus mine. I'd like to go back to work at the start of March after baby is about 4 months old. 

vizslalady

@ladyofarlington Interesting! I’m also curious. Where are you based at? I never even thought about tacking STD to the end of my maternity leave!

missmaehurt

I took 12 weeks the last time, only 8 paid, so hopefully I save up enough to do that again.

rc-cola

I get 8 paid because I haven’t been at my company for 3 yrs (then you get 12 paid) and then 2 wks std at 60%. Then my husband will take his 8 paid after. But he works from home so he will be around during mine.  I’m also trying to change the policy at work so everyone gets 12 paid. We will see...

tropical1982

My husband gets one week paternity leave.

I'm already trying to calculate how much PTO I'll need and I'm due late Oct, best case scenario I go mid month and can use my PTO for the rest of the year. But my 17 weeks carry over to 2019, not sure if I'll have to use 2019 vacation or take it unpaid.

ladyofarlington said:

I am very fortunate to have 16 weeks of paid family leave. Additionally, I believe I can also start maternity leave by using a week of PTO to cover the one week elimination period before 5 weeks of STD kicks in at 60% of my salary. In total, I think I may be able to take 22 weeks? I need to look into this to confirm the accuracy.


 @vizslalady - curious if we work for the same company 

My SIL works for Shell and they get the awesome 16 weeks paid! 

sammierose464

@tropical1982, I didn't even think about the fact that I'll be going into a new year. We can go negative in our vacation up to 1 week. I've been trying to figure out my vacation time for a while now, but it's all screwed up since my transfer in September...it's annoying.

bethica83

I get 12 weeks per FMLA and STD covers 6 weeks at 100%, then my company gives me another 6 weeks 100%. I also get to come back to 4 weeks of 50% hours at 100% pay. Plus DH gets 4 weeks too. Not sure exactly how we will use his - probably 2 weeks right away and 2 weeks later, maybe during my half time hours or after.

Overall I feel really happy with what we get compared to what I know other couples have here.

sparklingwhit

I just started a new job at the beginning of this month, but I’m already looking at another company because I will get no paid leave here and have another company offering me 6 months fully paid and 6 months after of work with baby from home. 

DH gets 26 weeks. 

pebbledam

I have to stop reading this thread. It's making me angry (not at you guys, but at my employer). My employer can definitely afford paid parental leave, but they're just a bunch of profit-hungry assholes. 

muchwanted

I'm in academia, due in October, so I will have to negotiate this. I suspect I'll get to take the rest of the semester and most of January, but I don't know for sure. Also, "maternity leave" for me means that I take all of my sick time. Because new parents never need sick days (eye roll). 

wolfpackgrl718

I'm planning on taking the full 12 weeks this time. My company gives us 3 weeks and the rest will be vacation/sick time until I run out. I need to look into STD also and see how it works, but it's not 100% pay. So some of mine will be unpaid or a reduced rate. 

eireyes

I think I'll probably take 10, but I'm not entirely certain. My company will pay for six weeks at 100% using sick time, and then in theory I can take up to an additional 20 weeks at 60% with my remaining sick pay. I took 8 with my oldest on STD and 6 with my youngest on STD, and 6 was definitely not enough for me (I just didn't want to leave yet). 8 was better, but since 8 would have me going back right before Christmas that just doesn't make sense either.

To be honest, I haven't really looked into it all that much yet - I've only been full-time with my current company a year, but I worked here as a contractor for four years before that, so my previous pregnancies were handled differently even though they still took place while I worked at my current company.

Gizmo1231

All short but wonderful 12 weeks