WTF Wednesday 1/19

kboydbowman

I totally can't believe that _______________.

laj0217

Called around to daycares just to get an idea of pricing. Found out waitlists are 1+ year out. How?! Are people booking spots before they’re even pregnant? I need a spot in 11 months and I haven’t even had a heartbeat confirmation yet. Who are these people? WTF?!

magnolia209

@laj0217 That’s insane, but not surprising. Get yourself on WLs. Since these kids might not all even be conceived yet! 🤣 But, in 11 months? Do you not get a longer than that maternity leave (I know not everyone can or does) but definitely make sure. It’s really hard to leave them that early. I went back when my son was 3.5 months last time. I’m going to try to take a bit longer this time. I had a friend watch him until he was 1 (I paid her, she wanted to stay home with her baby who was just a few weeks older - she watched both). Then he started at an inhome daycare at 1 and moved to the preschool with the long WL when he turned 3. We’ll talk to the director about getting the baby into the infant program at the same preschool just as soon as we hear the heartbeat! And, then, beg for financial aid! Omg. It’s so expensive, but we love this school. 

kboydbowman

I am lucky in this regard - the boy person will be a stay at home parent, so no daycare needed!  Although I may try to find a PRN one if I should ever need it.

laj0217

@magnolia209 I can take 12 weeks fmla, but I’ll only have enough leave saved for 8 weeks by then. I plan to take 2 weeks unpaid, but I’m the breadwinner in my family, so I have to go back to work the week after thanksgiving (10 weeks total). My husband will stay home at least a few days to get us to Dec 1st, and we’ve talked about him staying home unpaid that whole month, but it depends how much we can save between now and then. Just the realities I guess 🤷🏻‍♀️ So, planning for daycare Dec 1st, but might be able to stretch until January. 

laj0217

On a funny note about cost (which omg so expensive), the hubby was hoping for twins because we wouldn’t be able to afford daycare and he’d get to be a stay at home dad lol. He’s still trying to figure out how to make that work out 😂 I’m on a teacher’s salary, though, so he better start playing the lottery!

dsmith211

@laj0217

This is us too! We called the daycare we used for our son the day we found out with this one. I thought it was stupid but DH insisted. We have a little wiggle room bc I work from home so we said January of next year… they said that might be pushing it and it could possibly be as late as August 2023 before we can start. How?! 😳

Anyway, I doubt it will be that long and we love the place so we’re on the list. But seriously it seems so ridiculous. 🙄

magnolia209

@dsmith211 OMG that’s my fear! How can it be so long? 

laj0217

@dsmith211 omg August 2023 that’s truly wtf?! I mean that’s like 2 whole pregnancies out 😂😂

theblondebump

That is truly wild how long the waitlists are!! 

DH and I work from home (with a lot of flexibility since we are self-employed) and we have a nanny. We are very, very fortunate in that regard! Although some days I wouldn’t mind to have a quiet house, it’s been really great to have our daughter home for breastfeeding (pumping is literally the worst) and for Covid. I still can’t believe our almost 10 month old baby has never had so much as a sniffle yet (knock on wood!). Many of my friends have had a real rough go of it this year with daycare germs and Covid exposures/closings, etc. The worst of all is that they still have to pay when these things come up!!!!! Insane. 

magnolia209

@theblondebump That’s a great situation. Will you keep your first kiddo home with the nanny when the new baby comes? Will she watch both? The Covid closures have definitely been rough! I’m hoping that mine can get vaccinated and then not have to quarantine every time he is exposed by the time the baby arrives. He’s 3. My husband and I both work from home. It would be so amazing to have a nanny here with the baby. That’s not in the cards for us, but I love the idea! 

mk2022x

August of 2023!! Holy s*. Test positive, call doctor, get on daycare waitlist?! 

I also but I’m not sure how feasible it is to also care for baby while I work. I want to see if my mom has any desire to lend a hand for her first grandbaby haha. My coworker’s daycare just had a Covid breakout and she got it - crossing everything that this has died out a little by this time next year? But doubtful…

theblondebump

@magnolia209 yeah! It’s a nice balance of being able to BF as needed and being able to just like be part of playing or mealtime when I want to but being able to work undisturbed or take a rest too. And yeah, the plan is both babes will be home, at least for a while. Eventually she’ll go to preschool, but she’ll be 17 months when #2 is born, so she’ll be home for a bit still. Our nanny is part time right now but we’ll probably move to full time by the time #2 arrives. When our first was born we used a postpartum doula for like weeks 6-12 or so and honestly, it was pretty expensive. A nanny is a lot cheaper! Haha. 

jhysmath

We're lucky we use a small in home daycare, and I'm sure she'll be OK taking another one as 2 of the kids will be moving into our high school preschool next year. 

I'm a teacher too and really wish I could take 12 weeks and get paid, but if I don't use any sick time for the rest of this school year (doubtful with covid lurking around and daycare) I will have enough time to take 6 weeks paid and I don't think we could afford to take another 6 weeks unpaid. We just negotiated short term disability, but I don't think I will qualify because our policy doesn't start until July. So now to save and hope I can take another 4 weeks off and make it to 10 weeks. 

laj0217

@jhysmath even if the short term disability would cover you, check to make sure the math works out. Mine (also school system) only covers 6 weeks for vaginal delivery and 8 weeks for c-section and only kicks in after all your paid leave has been used. So, if yours is the same as mine, you’d get a maximum of 2 weeks benefit at 60% pay (our highest option). It ended up costing more than it would pay for me. 

So, I’m just putting away money every month to try and cover the two weeks unpaid I want to take. I wish I could do all 12 weeks, but with the school system, any unpaid leave also impacts your remaining pay for the year because they prorate it and then you don’t contribute to reserve pay for summer during that time either. So a September delivery means my paycheck will be wonky until September 2023 🙄

magnolia209

@laj0217 and @jhysmath I’m sorry it’s such a shitty set up for you all. That’s really not fair. I don’t have a great maternity leave plan, being a public university employee (essentially a state worker). Last pregnancy I got only the 6 week short term disability at 60%. And, yeah, didn’t get to use all of it because of needing to run down paid time off first. This time however, 4 years later, the university President instituted 8 weeks at 70% pay! Plus the short term disability. I’m really excited about this improvement (although it’s still appalling compared to private sector policies). I was able to split my sick and vacation time into half days last time to stay on payroll status but stay out for longer. I’m planning to do something like that again but not have to use all of my time off. 

@theblondebump That really works out. When your first goes to daycare or school they are going to get sick a lot, so I’m glad you are not starting them right when the baby arrives! My son will be in his 4th fall/cold season of school next fall. So I’m hoping he will be ok. He only got sick once this fall, but the kids who were just starting school got sick every other week! 

And I’m hoping for us that starting the baby in childcare in the Spring will let them build up toughness before the next cold/flu/Covid/rsv/HFM season! But I might be delusional about that. 

I’m thinking of looking for a short term nanny to watch the baby at home (we both work from home) next winter before we start them in the infant program in the Spring. 

kboydbowman

For our maternity leave, it's considered short term disability, but paid at 100% for 6 weeks for vaginal delivery and 8 weeks for C-section, but can be extended w/doctor's approval.  They use your leave credits to cover it, but only half "cost" (i.e., a week off costs you 20 hours of leave) and you can use any of your leave types (we get a lot of different kinds of leave - on average it comes out to about 6 weeks a year and a lot of it can be carried over from year to year as long as we don't exceed about 600 hours stored up).  Once your NDI (short-term disability) runs out, you can continue to extend your leave at full "cost" (i.e., 1 week of leave = 40 hours). Right now I have like 250 hours stored up, and should have closer to 350 by the time the baby is born so I'm in pretty good shape.  Working for the state has some benefits here in California.

magnolia209

@kboydbowman I’m essentially a CA state employee too, but I don’t get the CA benefit (I think because the university system gets state funding). So, that’s why last time I got NOTHING. I’m so glad things are different this time around and the university will give my 8 weeks at 70%. 

jhysmath

@magnolia209 from what we were told in negotiation, if we qualified for short term, we would use our days for that first 4 weeks (28 days but 4 school weeks) and then after the 30 day waiting period our std would kick in for 2/3 pay. That would go for our time off (I'm assuming the 6/8 weeks) if that were the case I'd use 20 days, get 2/3 pay for 2 weeks. Then get another 14 days after at full pay.

I just found out a male teacher was able to use 47 days to take his 12 week fmla this year, so I was hoping that I could use time after my 6 or 8 weeks out. 

Talking to my union lawyer about our sick bank, at my last school there was a clause that you couldn't use it for pregnancy, (she is the lawyer there too) and she said it's illegal to exclude people from using time from the sick bank due to pregnancy and birth. I'm not sure if I want to ask to use that time or not because the bank at this school is much smaller than the bank at my last school, and last year we had a new hire abuse it and she used all of the time and we had to feed into it again. 

laj0217

It’s not all bad here. The state of GA just implemented 3 weeks of paid parental leave in August. So I’ll get that, plus the 5 weeks of sick leave I’ll have saved. I’ll take 2 weeks unpaid to make it to thanksgiving break (paid), work 3 weeks, and then have another 2 weeks off paid. Could be worse. My sister in law had to go back for financial reasons at 3 weeks and a family member watched the baby. That’s not even enough time to heal from the c-section she had. 

theblondebump

Ugh, just reading this makes me so mad about the state of maternity leave in our country! It’s all such BS!! 

kboydbowman

No kidding.  Most of the rest of the world has guaranteed paid maternity/paternity leave, often up to a year.

magnolia209

Yeah it’s infuriating. And, very unequal. My lawyer cousin was able to take 7 months fully paid! My very good friend who works for a Music Management company can take 6 months full pay. My last pregnancy I got nothing. And, I have a “good” middle management job. I’m also exempt so I didn’t have to take any time off for doctors appointments and could really save up my paid leave to cover maternity leave. There are people much much much worse off than me, even though I felt very screwed over last time. My husband works for himself. There was nothing for him last time and he took exactly 3 days off. Because if he doesn’t work, he doesn’t make money. He thinks he’s found a way to get some family bonding paid time off this time around. I’m not sure how. Maybe it’s kind of like unemployment? But he wants to take a month off and I’m so excited about that! 

kboydbowman

@magnolia209
yeah, same deal on the appointments here - with my bargaining unit if you're there at all for a day you get credit for the whole day.  I try not to abuse that though - I make my appointments first thing in the morning or last thing in the day whenever possible so I'm usually only gone for a couple hours of the work day.

jhysmath

@magnolia209 my husband took 1 day off aside from being in the hospital for 3 days when we had our first. He was allowed to take 5 days total with our second so he did, I was at the hospital for 3 days again. But we also moved the week after so he was busy packing. At our school this time he is thinking of taking 2 weeks off because they allow it at this district. 

I will add we were on dinner vacation (both teachers) once our kids were a month old last times, she he did have 2 months with them. Personally I'm looking forward to having a maternity leave with just me and the baby seeing how we spend our summers near MIL and my husband invited her over at least 4 days a week which means he does yard work, she steals my baby, and I'm told use this time to clean. 🙄🙄🙄

theblondebump

Haha omg! @jhysmath If I was told to use that time to clean, I would lose my mind. In my head as I was reading your post, I was like nice! I’d take that time to relax/get a manicure lol, and then I read the “use this time to clean” and my eyes popped out of my head! 

kboydbowman

@jhysmath
tell HER she is free to clean as much as she'd like

jhysmath

@theblondebump @kboydbowman exactly. My husband would say, I had my mom over so you could take care of the house why is it still like this. It drove me bonkers. I'd prefer to wear my baby and clean the house thank you. I don't want to see her. If he spent time with her I don't think I would mind as much, but as soon as she gets there he has some project to do outside and leave her with me. She's a perfectly decent human, but I don't like spending time with her, I'm sure if I stick around long enough I'll have some good stories. Like when I had my first about 2 months in she texted me and said "I found out at church today that Jesus was breastfed" I sent back "yeah well they didn't have money and formula is pretty costly" she sent back, "yeah that's a good point." 

kboydbowman

@jhysmath
ok now I hate your husband too.  I love how cleaning is somehow solely your responsibility.  How about mom comes over, you get a break, and *he* cleans up the house?

laj0217

@jhysmath not sure if this is a regional thing,  but I was taught if you go see a new baby, you better bring dinner or do a chore to help the momma out if you expect to hold the baby lol. I’ve always followed it and so has my mom and my grandmother!

jhysmath

@kboydbowman outdoor chores are his responsibility and they are much more than I do. It took me a bit to realize that we both have our duties and during the summer his are focused on many more projects that need to get done outside. When I have a new baby, I don't do any of those chores. So he does take a lot off my plate. Like this summer he chopped 6 cord of wood and I stacked it. In a summer where I have a baby I don't do that. I don't help with the mowing or weed whacking, we mow about 4 acres of our 100 acres, and we chop trees from our property. There's a lot of work to be done in the summer. We are also in a 7 year remodel of the house that he handles most of.