Central Florida Nesties
Dear Community,
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Maternity leave: I has it.
If I didn't look like death warmed over, I would make a LOL cat pic of myself with the above caption. 
But yay! I am officially on maternity leave. Of course, I still wasn't able to sleep very well last night (or sleep in), but I can nap all I want to for awhile I'm going to make that pumpkin cheesecake today and attempt to make myself feel human with a haircut/color later this afternoon. Woohoo!
Re: Maternity leave: I has it.
I am envious of you!
Have fun effin off waiting for baby to arrive. I know that is what I would be doing!
If you don't mind me asking...
I was looking into my maternity leave at work b/c I wanted to see how it worked.
Does your company make you use your vacation first? then sick leave, then short term disabilty? Mine does
I just think it seems odd that one would have to use the vacation time first? I mean, would they prefer you just deliver in the office? It is not like it is all roses while at home caring for a newborn. Or is that pretty normal? I work for a relatively large corporation and just find it odd!
I know you were asking Steph, but I can tell you how mine worked! I had to use 14 days of vacation time first, because my short-term disability has an 14 day elimination period. After that, I was given four weeks of short-term disability. After that, I used my remaining week of vacation time.
FMLA grants 12 weeks but doesn't require that they be paid, so you'll want to check with your HR department to find out how your short-term disability works and if they pay anything other than that. I had to return after 7 weeks because I couldn't afford to not be paid for five weeks.
Congrats on your maternity leave Steph!!
Lisa - I work with Steph and this is how ours works...
Our company provides short term disability insurance at 55% of your salary with a 7 day elimination period (meaning that you don't get paid for the first 7 days). For uncomplicated childbirth you get 6 weeks, so you really only get paid for 5 weeks. If you take off before your delivery like Steph and I did, that is not covered at all unless you have a medically necessary reason to be out. You are not REQUIRED to take any of your vacation or sick time. You can certainly take the time off unpaid. If you have time, you can use it if you want. I took sick time for the week before I had Rylie and just went unpaid for that first week after she was born. Under FMLA you are allowed 12 weeks off, but you don't have to be paid for any of it.
All companies are different, though. I have never heard of a policy like your company has. It sounds very interesting. What if you have no vacation or sick time? Then do you get STD right away? And why do they make you use up all of your PTO? Don't they realize that you will need that when you come back to work for days that your baby is sick, or has to go to the doctor or whatever?
I also had AFLAC so that really helped when I was out.
I work for a county government and we dont get squat! Well...we get FMLA but again, that is not paid. All that is is a federal law stating that if you or anyone in your family has a medical illness(pregnancy included) your employer has to hold your position for 12 weeks.
We have to use all of our sick and vacation time if we want to get paid while out on leave.
I am indifferent on how I feel about this. It is not my employers fault that I decided to have a baby. Why should those who choose to have a family get more paid time off than those who dont want, or cant have a family. On the other hand, if we want to have enough time to take off in this sort of event(men and women) you need to start planning about 3 years in advance to have enough time for a decent maternity leave and enough time to allow for some sick days once returning to work. I am thinking worse case scenario. If I have a Csection, It would require 12 weeks recovery before returning to full duty. It would be nice if they would at least offer us STD for maternity.
Like LeeAnn said...thank heaven for my Aflac plan!!!
We used to have AFLAC, but DH company switched to supplemental with Allstate..he seems to think I would get no help from Allstate when baby time comes..so do I?
Also, I was a little backwards...my notes have using sick leave first which in four years here, I have only used 1 day of sick. Then you use vacation..then you get STD paid 100% for two weeks and 60% after that.."normal" leave is 6weeks, 8 for c-sec (but you guys prolly all know that) and of course I am aware of the FMLA.
If you don't have any vacay left (my hr lady highly recommends we try for end of the year delivery, and take all my vacay prior) then all you have is paid sick @ 100% and then the 2 weeks 100% then 60%.
Upon return you start earning/accrueing sicks days again, but once the vacay days are used up, they don't start again until Jan.
I think I will actually be alright, b/c in May I had 17 days of sick (3wks 2days) and so by the time we actually getting around to having kids, I may not have to have to many weeks paid at 60%.
What does PTO stand for?
I think PTO is Personal time off, or paid time off. One of the two. Some employers dont do seperate sick and vaca banks. They put it all in PTO for the employee to use at his/her discretion.
You will have to look through your Allstate plans. With Aflac, they have a hospitalization, sickness and STD plan all in which cover pregnancy and childbirth. I find it hilarious that they consider pregnancy a sickness but just for getting that positive diagnosis you get paid. The STD plan pays you while you are out of work and the hospitalization pays an amount for each night you are in the hospital. I am not sure of the amounts. My STD pay is based on my salary, of course so is the amount I pay to have it.
Check it out, some people have no idea that these supplemental plans will cover pregnancy.
Lisa - you're lucky that your sick carries over from year to year. We get 80 hours a year on January 1st, and what we don't use by the end of the year, we lose. We also get 24 hours of "personal time" but you can't use that in full day increments unless it is for a funeral. Not that it matters to me, I easily use up all of my time!!!
(I'm salaried so unless I'm out a whole day it doesn't really matter anyway.)
Debi - you do make a good point about why your company should not be responsible because you choose to have a baby, and I think that is why most companies don't directly pay you for STD. Most will pay premiums on a STD policy for you (like my company does) or nothing at all (like yours). However, I think if most companies didn't offer some type of STD policy, they would lose women when they went out on maternity leave.
Congratulations! (just in case I don't see you before the baby arrives)
...what LeeAnn said, hehe
It was a nice day today! I have chili cooking on the stove waiting for Paul to get home, I made the pumpkin cheesecake (waiting for that to cool to room temperature), got my hair colored/cut, and relaxed. Sooo nice!
The kiddo has been insanely active today.
That is true EAM... On the Aflac one you can NOT be pregnant within 30 day after the start of the policy, or deliver you baby within 10 months. If you have a complication during pregnancy OR you deliver a preterm baby because of a complication, you are still covered.
I double and triple checked that knowing I wanted to become pregnant soon after our wedding date February 9th!
Congrats on the maternity leave, Steph!
Hmph. I was offered AFLAC and I turned it down. Maybe I should look into it more and sign up at the next opportunity. Do you have to have it for 10 months before you get pregnant? Or you can't have the baby for 10 months? Someone said something about getting paid for the pregnancy diagnosis, so I guess you have to be in 10 months before that??? I guess I'll ask my HR lady, but I don't want them thinking I'm TTC.
That was weird...anyway,
It depends on the policy. For the STD policy, you can not become pregnant within 30 days of the of the start of the policy which would be 1/1. It also says you can not deliver within 10 months of the start of the policy, which is pretty much the same thing. It makes exceptions for preterm complications. I dont know about the other policies and what their time frames are.
You would have to look at all the other policies to see what you would want to benefit from. The ones I know of for sure that cover pregnancy related things for sure are the Sickness indemnity, Hospitalization, and STD policies. Of course the cancer policy will pay you for getting a pap smear.