Working & Maternity Leave

doraleigh35

@korthouse DH is in the same boat. He gets one day for the birth, which shocked me since he typically has great benefits through his employer. He has a ton of vacation time (some of which won't carry over this year) so we are just going to do that, but he would have had to go through EI as well. 

KFrob

@korthouse I think that's pretty common in US.  DH and I work at the same employer, but he started about a year before me.  When DD1 was born they didn't offer anything for mothers or fathers.  It was just STD and unpaid FMLA leave for mothers and nothing but PTO or unpaid FMLA for fathers.  DH had only been here a couple of months so he didn't qualify for FMLA and just had to use a couple of days of PTO.  A month or so after I started they announced they would start offer 4 weeks paid leave.    

smallbutmighty77

@korthouse yeah DH has a stock of vacation/pto so he is taking 2 weeks totally off. Since we know it is a c-section and with all our past complications, he wants to be there for this babe. He was with his company during our whole last pregnancy, and our daughters heart surgery so they are pretty 'of course, no problem' with him using it.

sbalding88

I'm going to try and work all the way up to when I go into labor. My doctor has already put me on light duty at work, so I'm taking it pretty easy these days so I think I'll be able to manage these final months. My job is actually 10 minutes closer to the hospital than my home is, so worse case scenario, I won't be far if I go into labor at work. Many of my co-workers are good friends and would be more than willing to drive me to the hospital if it came to that, though my hubby works a mile away and we live 6 miles from my work so he could probably come and get me without too much trouble. 

My general plan is that I'll take 10 weeks of maternity leave - 3 weeks of that paid from my work, 2-3 weeks vacation and sick time depending on how much I save up by then, and then 4-5 weeks of leave donations from other city government employees. I don't get short term disability with my job so they allow us to ask for leave donations if we are on FML once we've used up our personal leave. My husband is hoping to quit his job working retail in the next few weeks, so he'll be working part-time at our church and part-time with his new online teaching job. He's saved up 4 weeks of comp time already with his part-time job at the church and will probably have 6 weeks saved up by April so depending on if I have to have a c-section or not, he'll take 2-4 weeks off completely and then just work abbreviated weeks for a few weeks after that. He sets his own availability for the teaching, but he's planning on taking a break from that for two weeks at least right after the baby is born. 

After maternity leave is probably the part I'm freaking out about right now as we're still not sure what we'll do about childcare, but we're working on it. We've been talking about one of us staying home or trying to see if we can find a facility who will be flexible with part-time care, but so far we've not had any luck with that. 

literatureandink

@korthouse @KFrob It's horrible how sexist parental leave (when it's even offered) is. It's not making a new mom's life any easier by making her partner go back to work the next day...

nicoleyolee

Agreed with whoever said it was interesting to read all of the different times off/situations people have. 

I work online from home and choose my hours. So I guess the last two weeks I will only open my availability within 24 hours as it's easier than cancelling already scheduled classes, which are booked two weeks in advanced.  Then I have no Paid maternity leave. 👎

My husband has 2 weeks that he has to take right away and then  he can use the remaining 5 weeks paid through out the year so he will probably use those days in chunks like having a 3/4 day work week for x number of weeks, after my parents leave. 

My parents will come and visit for a month ish after baby is born so during that time I will also probably work a little bit (1-2 hours a day), then work on those days where hubs is home. I also have the option to work on the weekend.

So we will see what happens. 😉 

In Portugal, the maternity leave laws are pretty good if I was working here. 😂 They have 8 months standard paid Time off, then the employer must offer options like an extra month at 90% pay, two months 80% etc etc! 

coaster102516

@sbalding88 try searching for an in home or nanny share. Those options are more flexible for part-time needs and usually more cost friendly. Childcare costs are ridiculous, I’m most likely Staying home for that very reason, I would be working to pay daycare and that makes no sense. 

danibean19

@coaster102516 , @sbalding88 - the childcare costs are outrageous in my city. It's the major reason DH is resigning after the birth. Almost his entire salary would have gone towards daycare, except for like $300/mo, and since he hates his company and comes home miserable every day we decided that it was worth it in the long run for him to stay home. 

KFrob

Just a thought for people to consider when thinking about leaving work to stay home, also think about how leaving will affect future pay.  Right now it might not seem like it makes sense to work if you're breaking even, or close to breaking even, but also think about how during that time there will be opportunities, raises, promotions, and bonuses that you'd be missing out on.  So when you do enter back into the work force you're sort of starting over.  I know everyone's situation is different and you have to weigh the pros and cons but I feel like sometimes people are quick to jump to the "whats the point in working if we're breaking even" thought.  

Edit grammar 

sbalding88

@coaster102516 I'll look into that for the future. My husband talked to his boss about bringing our daughter to work with him when she's little, and he agreed to it. My husband's job is super flexible as he has no set office hours and it's really just him, his boss, and his co-worker who mentioned the idea of our baby coming with him. It'll be super convenient because he'll be just a mile away so I can come to his work and have lunch and feed/spend time with my little girl. But once she's bigger than 6 months, that's not going to be a feasible option anymore. 

@KFrob You are exactly right, which is why I'm very hesitant to quit my job and we've not really considered me being the stay-at-home parent. There's a promotion coming up in the next month or so that would increase my salary by 8-9k and even more once I've been in the position for a year. It's weird timing with maternity leave so I hope it will work out. My husband is much more willing to be a stay at home parent at some point, and he has no way of moving up where he's at now. He's going to start looking for a different job after the baby is born though and we'll see what happens. 

@danibean19 It's true - I hate how expensive it is! I think we calculated that full-time childcare would cost almost both of my DH's paychecks. But I started looking at budgeting with my income and some side hustle money my hubby would make, and it would be super tight, so hopefully we can find some sort of At least it looks like we have until October/November before we have to worry about that as baby girl is going to work with DH from 3 months until 6 months old.  

babybison

My husband works in accounting, and the companies are always trying to outdo each other with benefits to get the better employees. So he gets 16 weeks 100% paid which he can use at any time during the first year of baby. He doesn't use it all, but it's really nice to be able to take off time in the beginning and then the summer and then for the holidays.

KFrob

@sbalding88 Sounds like it's perfect timing for your H to stay home!  We're to the point where were just about breaking even with my net salary once we have 3 kids in daycare but I'm in the same boat with a possible promotion and raise

smallbutmighty77

Yeah money is always rough- and we live in a fairly expensive city too so- ugh. But my salary and work has way better insurance and covers said good but expensive insurance so even if we were dead even to daycare, I would stay bc the addition of DH doing insurance would be worse. Plus I am not SAHM material and I am hoping for a new position/ raise soonish!

mercury94

I am not the sort of person who can stay home. I have a lot of student loan debt and I didn’t get that debt so that I could stop being a lawyer. Plus, I love my job and I make more than DH. Daycare is stupid expensive, but it definitely isn’t either of our entire salaries, so we plan to both continue working. I think that if I made a little more, DH might consider staying home, but not yet for sure. 

coaster102516

MH makes more than me and I’ve pretty much maxed out as far as promotions and salary bumps go. I’ll get two more bonuses and probably a small salary bump before I give birth but it’s just not enough incentive for me to stay. Cost of daycare for 3 children was definitely a huge factor in our decision but there were also other factors that contributed. It currently it takes me an hour each way to commute and only seeing my kids for 2-3 hours per day breaks my heart, I don’t love what I do, DS is needing additional therapies/services that require me to have an open/flexible schedule and our goal was always for me to eventually to stay home. I am going to approach my boss about changing my role to contract so I can work from home.