No paid maternity leave? :(

misspriss726

Who isn't getting paid for maternity leave?  How do you plan to manage the time off?  Will not getting paid affect how long you stay at home with the baby?  I'm one of the lucky ones who won't get paid.  I will be covered by FMLA so I don't lose my job and I will have up to 12 weeks, but don't think I could afford a full 12 weeks without my pay (I make the same amount as hubby).  I have been putting money aside every week since I found out that I was preggo, and plan on taking 8 weeks off, and 4 weeks part-time from home.  My boss and I haven't discussed this yet, but he should be OK with it.  Honestly, this situation sucks and I hate feeling like we are going to be so tight with $.  It scares the bejesus out of me...

RissNRuss

I likely won't be paid- my company is only 4 people. No FMLA for me. We actually got by on Hubby's old salary for 2-3 months last year when we moved for his current job- and he got a raise last week. We have also stayed living on what we did in our old location (except in housing) so we have been putting away money big time. I will likely only take 6-8 weeks leave, and possibly try to see what I can do from home. We also have an independent business, so that will also be one way to keep up. We can pay all the bills on his salary, we just need to save for the new expenses/ paying off our student loans (auto withdrawals).

My boss isn't ready to talk about it yet, but Baby is coming during our meeting season, rather than our need-to-be-at-desk season. So that's better overall for me. 

ehnasto

I too don't get paid maternity leave. I just plan on taking all of my vaca and sick leave first so I can get paid for at least a few weeks. I luckly work at location where they can't afford to may me overtime so they pay me in vaca time. The more I work now, the more I can get paid while I am off for baby. I know some of my friends here at my office have stretched their 12 weeks out. They took 6 up front and are working 3 or 4 days a week for the next several months. They seem to be managing well. It stinks to know your are coming up to a time where it si going to be really tight, but maybe your boss will let you work from home a couple of days a week when you go back to full-time.

LindsayF

I will also not have "paid maternity", but I am THANKFULLY covered by FMLA.  I really want to take the full 12 weeks.  I am using all my vacation, saving our tax refund, and scrimping until baby comes to make it happen. 

Luthien1015

I haven't got FMLA or vacation, but I think if my husband and I are frugal and save up prior to my time off, and save our tax return, we'll be ok for six weeks. 

k_warren8

I feel your pain, although I get paid time with my saved vacation time. It's still hard. My income is still relied to pay bills. Last time I had leave, I took 12wks with little pay and we had money in our savings.  This time it is different, money is tighter  and our saving is not there. So I haven't decided how long I will be taking off work. I like your plan. I wish I had that option for part-time. Good luck! Just take in account you won't be spending much on gas. 

newmommy61713

I'm in the same boat   We're using our tax return for our maternity fund. $3,000 only covers 6 weeks unpaid time and I play on using 2 weeks paid vacation.  So 8 weeks total.  

Audrey_03

I'm just taking a week of vacation and then going back to work. HR keeps trying to talk me into/force me to take short term disability, but that would prevent me from working AT ALL and I find it offensive that HR considers a baby a disability.

newmommy61713

You're only taking a week off work after having a baby? God bless you! haha

stephaniehicks1106

I am in this situation and have no paid maternity leave. I am taking 8 weeks off, so we have been trying to save up the equivalent of 8 weeks worth of my pay. It's so stressful. At my old job I was given 8 weeks fully paid right off the bat with my first, so this just makes things so much more stressful this time around.

Audrey_03

newmommy61713:

You're only taking a week off work after having a baby? God bless you! haha

I left the hospital and literally stopped at the office for a few hours on my way home with #1. I don't do maternity leave. 

notquiteblushing

Audrey_03:

newmommy61713:

You're only taking a week off work after having a baby? God bless you! haha

I left the hospital and literally stopped at the office for a few hours on my way home with #1. I don't do maternity leave. 

 

skio

The job I was working when I was pregnant with DD didnt give any paid leave. When we found out I was pregnant, we made a new budget and realized we'd need an additional 2k per month in addition to H's salary to get by, so we saved an extra 8k while I was pregnant. It was no easy task, but we did it.

I resigned from that job at 37w because I was planning staying at home with DD. H got a big raise when DD was 4m old; hence the need for four months of extra money. I got a p/t job two months later to help out.

Check your state disability laws. I think I got a couple hundred bucks from NYS, can't remember how much.

RedLipstick69

I'm not receiving paid time off. I have been saving weeks of holiday/sick leave and I have been saving about $500 a month. I will not let it affect my maternity leave and I am planning to take the full 12 weeks. Things will all work out.

atangiblewish

I elected to have 70% short term disability when we had to do our benefit elections. So it will help a little.

nowuseeme4407

I dont get paid leave either...however I am not worried. DH makes great money. More than enough to sustain everything while I am off. My work is important to me so I with out a doubt will be in and out while on said 8-12 week leave. My company has given written consent that allows me to bring little one in when I want to. 

hjk5000

notquiteblushing:

Audrey_03:

newmommy61713:

You're only taking a week off work after having a baby? God bless you! haha

I left the hospital and literally stopped at the office for a few hours on my way home with #1. I don't do maternity leave. 

 

I'm just....I don't...um..ditto blushing.

megaroo64

I will not get paid for my maternity leave.  For me though, I would not have gotten paid over this summer either way: I work in the technology department of a school and my position is a 10-month position- no pay during the summer.  If I wasn't having a baby, I could have worked part time at the office, but I declined that option.. obviously.  

A few months ago, we essentially stopped living off of my salary at all.  My salary still pays for some incidentals, but all of the major stuff, my H took over.  That way we can put more of my salary away for when I will not be bringing in any income.  

flcountrygirl

LindsayF:

I will also not have "paid maternity", but I am THANKFULLY covered by FMLA.  I really want to take the full 12 weeks.  I am using all my vacation, saving our tax refund, and scrimping until baby comes to make it happen. 

This!  I will probably take 8-10 weeks and then MAYBE do 4 days a week for awhile after I go back, but honestly last time after 10 weeks I went back full-time.

iggles09

No maternity leave here. I will have a few sick days and vacation days - maybe 10 days total at the most. We will definitely be dipping into savings and trying to live off of DH's resident salary as much as possible.

I am also planning to take 8 weeks off. I guess if the money situation is unbearable I will go back at 6. 

Willubmine

Nope no paid maternity leave. I run my own in-home daycare, so yes, I will close for about 2-3 weeks completely, and then we will be open again. It might be a challenge to make it work physically, but financially we should be okay. My husband makes pretty good money, so I work to help fill in some of the blanks and to also give us some play money. I don't take a long maternity leave because I can't expect my clients to give up on my daycare for an extended period of time. 

Rachelly8

I own a small business (music therapy private practice and teaching studio) so I have no paid maternity leave either. I am planning to take most of the summer off, which is my slowest time of year anyway, but it will be tough. DH makes great money but is used to splitting expenses with me, so it should be interesting.

Rachelly8

I own a small business (music therapy private practice and teaching studio) so I have no paid maternity leave either. I am planning to take most of the summer off, which is my slowest time of year anyway, but it will be tough. I am doing some extra work before my due date to save up, and then DH will most likely cover what I normally would with my income since he makes more than enough.

Cangel24

Barely anyone gives piad maternity leave this days in the US. (It sucks) I won't be at my job for a year by the time the baby is born so I''m not eligible for FMLA. However, we can get voluntary leave donations from others and I've already had one co-worker offer me 2 weeks of leave. So I really won't know exactly how many weeks I will be taking (I know at minimum 8) until probably May once everyone has decided if they will too volunteer leave to me! 

KEK1025

I am fortunate enough to get 6 weeks paid.  Then I will use two weeks vacation and the last 4 will be unpaid.  We evaluated the budget and determined how much of my salary we actually need in addition to DH's to cover bills/expenses/etc and that is what we are saving.  We might have to live a slightly simpler life that last month but it is doable in our situation.  Otherwise I would go back at 8 weeks.

nikel13

I'm work for a temp agency and work temp at a college.  I'm lucky that I work for such great people as I will have a job when I come back.  With that being said, I won't be getting paid maternity leave because I am not full time. DH and I are trying to save up what we can and we will be able to get by on just his check for six weeks.  After that, I have to go back to work or we will be in trouble.

MrsHughesNC

We don't have paid maternity leave, or STD. So, I can use my sick and vacation time, but anything outside of that will be unpaid. I've only been here for a year, so I haven't accrued a ton (I've also used quite a bit--before I got pg). Best case scenario, I'll only have about 4.5-5 weeks paid. I plan to take 12 weeks off total (we are FMLA eligible), and the rest will be unpaid. I will ask for leave donations (grovel much?), but I've heard most people don't donate unless they're in use or lose status (which is at the end of the year), so I'm not holding my breath. I've been putting $ away each paycheck to help. Things might be a little tighter for a bit, but we'll make it work.

jlml2008

Right before I got pregnant with DD I signed up for short term disability which ended up being a lifesaver after I had her. At the time DH was in school and my income was our primary income. I ended up being put on bed rest at 33 weeks and the short term disability covered 70% of my salary until she was born and then for 6 weeks after that since I had a vaginal birth. I had 3 weeks of saved vacation/sick time so all together I ended up taking 9 weeks off with only a slight cut in pay (the 70% vs 100%)

I would HIGHLY suggest using your short term disability if you have it and not looking at it like baby is a disability. They will pay a portion of your pay until you are physically able to go back to work and then depending on FMLA and your situation you could take more time off 

TheyCalledHerKate

I will only have 4 weeks of the 12 I take off paid. It will not impact us financially as we've prepared for it.

homebird

I don't get paid for the time I'm off. I'm hourly, so I'm trying to work extra hours now so we have some money set aside to cover bills and other extra expenses while I'm off. It will be tight, sure, but it's only temporary.

GingerBabyTX

No paid leave for me. (Makes me miss my job in Boston...they offered 12 weeks paid automatically there...)

I'll have about 6 weeks of sick & vacation time accrued that I'll use up, and then hopefully take another 2 off unpaid (with FMLA to protect my job) with what we've saved.  We're saving pretty well, but we have to know that emergencies may come up (like the dog's $900 surgery this past month...grrr).  

My office is AWESOME though and we work off campus so I know I can bring LO in if I need to come in a few days before I'm ready.

kanga1622Wed220857

I will be getting a mostly paid maternity leave this time around. I have about 10-10.5 weeks of sick/vacation time saved up that I can use as pay during my leave. I still plan to take the full 12 weeks but it will be tight as I make 2/3 of the income in my household.

 

With DS, I had the full 12 weeks of sick/vacation time saved up so I had a fully paid 12 week leave. 

bride05Jules

I get paid at 85 for 6 weeks for VB and 8 weeks for a CS. Its pretty good but I still worry about the other 4 weeks I expect to take in addition. I hope it works out to be off until the end of August. To save we have modified our deductions on our paychecks per our accountants analysis. Also since it took a long time to get pg we have a savings account set aside for it.

jlaOK

I am using 2 weeks of vacation, will get 2 weeks of paid maternity leave, and will be able to take a total of 8 weeks off (non-FMLA qualifying company).  When I got pregnant I didn't have any vacation time and there was no paid maternity leave policy in place.  I am the first one in the company to have a baby, so they re-negotiated my employment agreement to add in those two benefits.  DH and I planned on me taking 8 weeks totally unpaid, so the 4 weeks paid is a bonus.  We are using savings to make up for the lack of my salary.

Jtaxson

I don't qualify for fmla, std or get paid ML. We haven't started saving for my time off either since we committed to remodeling our 50 year bathrooms I our house we moved into 5 months ago. I have a well paid part time job and my husband makes good money but its very stressful because we will be short at least a couple thousand dollars a month while I'm off. We will start saving as much as we can starting in march. My boss doesn't want me to take the full 12 wks like I did with my DS so I might ask for a compromise where I come back 20 hrs a week at 8 weeks if he covers my pay for 6 weeks. Keeping fingers crossed.

behapy2day

We have STD, AFLAC, and Colonial Life for this specific reason. I have a generous leave policy where I work so I will be out for 24 weeks... but between my vacation/sick time only 10 weeks of that is paid. The above will cover an additional 10 weeks, and then I will go unpaid for the last four. 

nicoleliu271

No paid maternity leave for me.

Kimby727

I technically don't get maternity leave.  I have 3 weeks of vacation time for the year, so I'll need to use all of that and then won't get paid for the remaining 3 weeks of leave.  3 weeks just isn't long enough.  Last pregnancy I had 3 weeks totally off, then worked half of my usual hours from home the remaining 3 weeks so it wouldn't be as much of a financial strain.  I'm hoping to save up enough to just take the full 6wks off this time though without having to do that. 

hoopduck

Um can I just say something? Only a few short weeks of maternity leave is sad and I feel like punching your cheapskate employers right in the throat! What is wrong with them? In Canada we get 1 yr off paid maternity leave. I feel super lucky!!

Kimby727

hoopduck:

Um can I just say something? Only a few short weeks of maternity leave is sad and I feel like punching your cheapskate employers right in the throat! What is wrong with them? In Canada we get 1 yr off paid maternity leave. I feel super lucky!!

 

That sounds amazing.  If this wasn't my last baby I would move to Canada right now 

lisa3044

I left my position as a 2nd grade teacher to work for a different school district as a paraprofessional June 2012 (long story and probably the biggest mistake of my life, but that is another thread I've been thinking about posting for months now). So, I get paid hourly and only while school is in session. Depending upon when baby W comes, I will not be paid again until school starts back up (about 14 weeks off I'm guessing). I am hoping I can get another teaching job but am not optimistic given that I've been trying for the last 2.5 years in the area that I live. If I don't get a salary teaching job, I may not go back to work because what I make right now will not be worth the cost of day care.

DH is pushing for me to get back to work big time so if I don't get a teaching job, I may have to do something in the evenings like waitress while he watches the baby. I will be mortified if I end up having to do that though. All my time and energy into getting my degree and masters plus the 9 years I already have into my career will feel almost wasted! Come on economy! Maybe we need to move?? There is my mini rant. I could go on...