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Working Moms
Question about maternity leave
I recently told my boss that I'm pregnant. For your knowledge, my boss also handles all HR issues. There are only 35 employees here so I knew FMLA would not be available. After the congratulations I asked her about the leave policy. She said they offer short term disability and I will be paid 60% of my salary while I'm gone. I told her that was awesome! But then I asked for how long? She said she didn't remember and did I have my employee manual handy? So I pulled it out and found the info. It said "max benefit of 12 weeks." I said, great! So I can take 12 weeks! And she said, no it doesn't work like that. You'll probably only get six weeks. She explained that it is up to my doctor to write a note telling me when I'm cleared to come back to work. She said vaginal deliveries are usually only six weeks.
I was a bit confused and said something along the lines of not being able to plan ahead of time how much time I will be off. She said no, I won't know how much time I get until after I give birth. Hmmm, seemed a bit strange to me to not be able to plan.
If this is correct, I understand. And please know that I'm definitely NOT complaining about having paid leave. I think that's an awesome benefit! I'm just confused about not planning ahead of time how long I will be out. There are a lot of factors to think about including a daycare that will need to take a six-week-old.
Any words of wisdom from you ladies?
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Re: Question about maternity leave
Can you afford to take any time w/o pay? If so- ask about that in order to extend your time at home.
ETA: Just as an aside- at 6 weeks, I could have come back if I had to, but I really wasn't ready. At 8 weeks I had thought "O.k. - now I really could do it!", but I was SOOOOO thankful to have 12 weeks. And a chunk of this was unpaid. But fully worth it to me.
~Benjamin Franklin
DS dx with celiac disease 5/28/10
Ditto what hocus wrote. I would only expect to have 12 weeks if you have severe complications from the birth causing your doctor to put you on STD longer than 6 or 8 weeks (which is extremely unlikely), or if you are put on bedrest before delivering, so you would have however many weeks for bedrest + the 6 or 8 weeks post-partum.
When we were searching for DC's we had to start paying from the time our slot opened up/we planned to need care until we started using DC, even though our child was not there yet. So you could plan on LO starting DC at 6 weeks, and then if you have a C-Section, you could keep LO home with you for the extra two weeks you are out, but you may have to start paying for DC. DC's know that it is impossible for you to be able to tell them months in advance which day your LO will start so most will work with you on actual start dates, but you may have to pay for some time you are not actually using.
Oh, I never thought about that. Thanks for the suggestion.
This is exactly what I did, too and it was TOTALLY worth it!
STD is generally 6 weeks for vaginal delivery, 8 for c-section but if you get some sort of incision infection, which I really hope you don't, then you may get a few more weeks of STD while on ML.
Another consideration - can you use any sick leave? Will you have accrued annual? They may be more lax with when you can use your sick leave than the STD policy would allow, so if you took 6 weeks of disability + 2 weeks sick + 2 weeks annual, then you'd only have 2 weeks left as leave without pay.
Ditto what Hocus said, Standard disability only pays while you are "disabled" which is basically from when you give birth (or get put on bed rest etc) until dr clears you (generally 6-8 weeks postpartum). If you have any paid leave you can take that as well, and ask for unpaid time off, but your employer does not have to grant you unpaid time off, nor do they have to hold your job for you.
Also note some STD policies have a 1 week waiting period, so you don't get your 60% for the first week, so for a 6 week leave you would only get 5 weeks.