Holy Crap! My boss is pregnant too!

GSUDavis · January 2015

Since I made it into the second trimester (woohoo!), I decided that it was time to spill the beans to my boss. She look horrified and then started laughing and told me that she is ALSO pregnant. After comparing dates, she is only about *three weeks* behind me. This would be awesome news, except, we are the only two people in our department and I'm scared to death that we are going to end up having a conversation where she tells me that we are both going to have to work from home durning our maternity leave AND with brand new babies!! She's already making noise that this is what is going to happen.

Has anyone else ever faced this kind of situation and how did (or how would) you handle it??

Thanks in advance!

ipumpkin · January 2015

Oh shit, OP. Hopefully that is not the case and you can just enjoy being home with your new baby at that time.

I don't have any advice 'cause I've never been faced with this, but I really hope it works out for the best for you.

Is it possible for your company to hire and train temps for while you're out of the office?

GSUDavis · January 2015

@ipumpkin, that is exactly what my husband asked. Honestly, I have no idea. We work for the railroad and our positions are dediciated 24/7, always on call. There is *a lot* that we do and manage on a day-to-day basis that is really out of the usual scope of "normal railroad" operation because we deal with so many third party venders and supervise operations in over 40 different railyards across our network. Soooo, I have no idea how this is going to be handled because there is almost a 100% gurantee that we will both be out on maternity leave at the same time. And, my boss already knows that she's going to have to have a c-section and will be out for at least 12 weeks. I will hopefully only be out for 6.

ipumpkin · January 2015

Wow. I definitely know working on the railroad is a 24/7 job, so that certainly makes it tough. But for that exact reason, I'd hope they can get SOME kind of coverage for you, because there is no way things would be able to flow smoothly without having someone there, I'm sure. Have you discussed the temp thing with your manager at all? If that's an option, I'd jump on getting someone hired ASAP because of all of your responsibilities they'll have to learn.

Good luck!

GSUDavis · January 2015

Well, she has said that there is talk about admins possibly helping us out. I don't know where she is on figuring this all out and I don't want to hound her about it and come off like I'm super worried about it when I told her, "no worries,we'll handle it", trying to make sure my job is secure. But at the same time, I don't want to spend the first weeks with my precious newborn and husband constantly battling work. Much less trying to make it all work on top of little sleep, new baby stress, and work stress. =/ Who knows what we are going to do.

mamayo26 · January 2015

Do you have an HR department you can talk with about this? That would be my first stop. You should be concentrating on your baby not worrying about work or making any critical decisions when you are sleep deprived?

Is this your boss' first too? She may just not understand yet what this means.

GL!

jerseygirl227 · January 2015

You have a legal right to 12 weeks unpaid maternity leave. I'd probably just wait and see how things play out, but I wouldn't let her tell me that I have to work from home during maternity leave. Like a PP said, contact your HR department if you have one.

Good luck!

GSUDavis · January 2015

Yes we do have a wonderful HR department and this is my boss' first pregnancy as well. I will have to fire off an email to the department and see where they stand on the subject. I'm not afraid of being fired for the maternity, but I am afraid that whoever they might bring in to replace us while we are out may end up keeping my job. I know she's not worried about her's because she's the manger and has been for years, but I'm the assistant manager (since April 2014) and I could be replaced. But like PP have said, I will have to wait and see what HR says.

Thanks for the advice!

ipumpkin · January 2015

shinyredsmartazz said:

BubblesMartin said:

jerseygirl227 said:

You have a legal right to 12 weeks unpaid maternity leave. I'd probably just wait and see how things play out, but I wouldn't let her tell me that I have to work from home during maternity leave. Like a PP said, contact your HR department if you have one.

Good luck!

This is false. Depending on the size of OP's company and work duties, she *may* be entitled to up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave under FMLA. There is no legal right to 12w of unpaid maternity leave.

This. Beat me to it. The company has to have 50 or more employees within 75 miles, and you have to have worked a minimum number of hours in a year and have been employed with the company for at least 12 months.

Hoping you and your boss can work it out, OP. Working during at least the first couple of weeks sounds like fresh hell, but I'll bet the two of you can find a good balance.

@shinyredsmartazz‌ Is this true for all the US? I've not heard of this until now and I am really curious about it because I fit that criteria.

JubilantSquirrel · January 2015

ipumpkin said:

BubblesMartin said:

jerseygirl227 said:

You have a legal right to 12 weeks unpaid maternity leave. I'd probably just wait and see how things play out, but I wouldn't let her tell me that I have to work from home during maternity leave. Like a PP said, contact your HR department if you have one.

Good luck!

This is false. Depending on the size of OP's company and work duties, she *may* be entitled to up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave under FMLA. There is no legal right to 12w of unpaid maternity leave.

This. Beat me to it. The company has to have 50 or more employees within 75 miles, and you have to have worked a minimum number of hours in a year and have been employed with the company for at least 12 months.
Hoping you and your boss can work it out, OP. Working during at least the first couple of weeks sounds like fresh hell, but I'll bet the two of you can find a good balance.
@shinyredsmartazz‌ Is this true for all the US? I've not heard of this until now and I am really curious about it because I fit that criteria.

Answering for @shinyredsmartazz‌ , but yes. FMLA is federal, so it doesn't matter where in the US you live it applies to you if you fit the criteria. Here's a link with more info. https://www.dol.gov/whd/regs/compliance/whdfs28.pdf

delujm0 · January 2015

JubilantSquirrel said:

ipumpkin said:

shinyredsmartazz said:

BubblesMartin said:

jerseygirl227 said:

You have a legal right to 12 weeks unpaid maternity leave. I'd probably just wait and see how things play out, but I wouldn't let her tell me that I have to work from home during maternity leave. Like a PP said, contact your HR department if you have one.

Good luck!

This is false. Depending on the size of OP's company and work duties, she *may* be entitled to up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave under FMLA. There is no legal right to 12w of unpaid maternity leave.

This. Beat me to it. The company has to have 50 or more employees within 75 miles, and you have to have worked a minimum number of hours in a year and have been employed with the company for at least 12 months.
Hoping you and your boss can work it out, OP. Working during at least the first couple of weeks sounds like fresh hell, but I'll bet the two of you can find a good balance.

@shinyredsmartazz‌ Is this true for all the US? I've not heard of this until now and I am really curious about it because I fit that criteria.

Answering for @shinyredsmartazz‌ , but yes. FMLA is federal, so it doesn't matter where in the US you live it applies to you if you fit the criteria. Here's a link with more info. https://www.dol.gov/whd/regs/compliance/whdfs28.pdf

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While those are federal guidelines definitely call your company's HR department. Some companies offer leave that is above and beyond the federal law. They are only required to adhere to the federal law as the bare minimum if it applies to them.

My company does follow FMLA but pays based on out short term disability policy...so I will get 6 weeks at 100% pay for vaginal birth or 8 weeks at 100% pay for a c-section. And then the rest will be unpaid. Every company has different short term disability plans and they're not required by law so look into that as well. Additionally my company provides short term disability to all full time employees free of cost to us...some places require employees to opt in and pay those premiums for themselves. If you have that going on you need to be on the plan before getting pregnant or else you won't be covered.

GSUDavis · January 2015

delujm0 said:
--------------------------------------------------------------------- While those are federal guidelines definitely call your company's HR department. Some companies offer leave that is above and beyond the federal law. They are only required to adhere to the federal law as the bare minimum if it applies to them. My company does follow FMLA but pays based on out short term disability policy...so I will get 6 weeks at 100% pay for vaginal birth or 8 weeks at 100% pay for a c-section. And then the rest will be unpaid. Every company has different short term disability plans and they're not required by law so look into that as well. Additionally my company provides short term disability to all full time employees free of cost to us...some places require employees to opt in and pay those premiums for themselves. If you have that going on you need to be on the plan before getting pregnant or else you won't be covered.

delujm0 - This is also how my company handles our FMLA.

Thank you all for the great advice! =D

As others said above, my boss is very nice and understanding and I'm sure there is something that we can do to kind of piece meal the work over our time off, hoping that we will have our LOs at different times. I think that might be the best answer. I don't have any issue with getting back to phone calls or emails so long as our venders are understanding of the fact that we both just had babies and things are a little bit hairy for at least the first couple of weeks. And most of our venders have families, so I'm thinking they should understand.

beemaya83 · January 2015

You should be protected under FMLA for at least 12 weeks.

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