How much leave to take?
I am wondering how much leave I should aim to take from my job following the birth of the twins. If I don't get put on bedrest beforehand (and I realize that is a HUGE "if"), I will only have enough accrued leave to take 6-8 weeks MAX. I am thinking about applying for voluntary leave transfer and taking leave without pay for some portion of the time, maybe to total 12 weeks off of work after the birth. Maybe with tax returns, that might help cover my mortgage payment during the time I take leave without pay.
I thought I had saved up a decent amount of leave, but of course I never factored in the possibility of being considered a high risk pregnancy, having to go for numerous and frequent medical appts beforehand, or possibly being placed on bedrest.
My mom plans to come from out of state and stay for maybe two weeks or so when I go back to work to help out and keep the babies home just a bit longer. DH might take an extra week too.
Advice?
Re: How much leave to take?
This is me. I thought I was in great shape to be able to get 100% pay for 12 weeks (including disability which will cover 2/3 of my income for the first 8 weeks if I have another c-section). Now I'm concerned that I will go on bed rest and either have to come back to work much earlier than I expected or go without pay. I think I can transition to long term disability if my bed rest + home with the babies is more than 12 weeks total, but I will only get paid if I have enough benefit time. My hope is to be at home 12 weeks after the babies are born. Praying that if I do go on bed rest it is short term. I do plan on putting our tax return away to cover expenses.
6 year old daughter
Fraternal boys born on May 11, 2013 at 36 weeks 4 days
Obviously our case didn't go as planned, but I always planned to be off for 5 months - as it is, I'll be out 5.5 months. The challenge for us is that I got all of three days of pre-delivery disability, and only get 6 weeks post. I'll exhaust all of that and all FMLA a few weeks before I go back to work. Luckily my employer allows for really long leaves on a case by case basis (many women take a full year), but that will mean I'll have to pay the full cost of insurance, etc during that last month, which isn't cheap. We saved like crazy all throughout the pregnancy to allow for this - and DH also plans to take 2-3 weeks of FMLA.
Luckily, I'll be headed back to work mid-April, so we'll hopefully be mostly out of the woods with regards to flu/RSV season, since they will be in daycare 3 days/wk. But, my hope is to get 3-4 months with them at home before I head back - and based on the girls' progress to-date we're right on track to hit that target!
My advice would be to take as much time off as you possibly can. Those early weeks are very challenging, and you feel really disoriented. It's nice that you will be able to keep the babies home for and extra couple of weeks. But you are going to need time to re-coop as much as they will.
You might be able to qualify for disability if you're put on bedrest. It wouldn't be full pay, but at least it would keep you from using up leave time. Also look into time off after babies under the family medical leave act. DH was able to get some extra time that way.
Have you looked into any state laws? I know in Massachusetts we have MMLA where your job must hold your position for 8 weeks following the birth of a child. Since I'm having twins they consider that giving birth twice and must hold it for 16 weeks. I believe FMLA can be used for bed rest since MMLA doesn't kick in until you actually give birth but I could be wrong because I don't qualify for FMLA. Might be worth looking into state laws though!
Yes. If you can swing it financially I would try to take as much time as you can. I took 12 weeks and used my short-term disability payout, which was 6 weeks at 60 percent pay. I was also paid out for the vacation I didn't use.