Mat-leave question

formerlyGDaisy09 · October 2015

Hello everyone, it's been quiet here lately. wondering if you all could help me figure out what to do with my maternity leave. I can't afford to take anything unpaid.

My company will give 6 weeks of paid medical leave (vaginal delivery) and 8 weeks paid for a c-section. Additionally they give 2 weeks of paid "family leave" that can be taken any time in the baby's first year, but most moms tack it on to the end of their maternity leave (dads get this too, and often take one week after baby is born and one week as mom goes back to work to save another week on child care). so I get 8-10 weeks depending on how delivery goes (obviously I'm hoping for the former).

Right now I have 18 days of vacation time that I could also use towards getting paid for some additional time during the 12-week FMLA period. I'm thinking that I'll use 14 days to take a full 10 weeks off then do two weeks back at work at 60% effort to ease back into working. that would leave me with 4 days of PTO to get me from March-ish until the end of June, does that seem realistic? we don't have any vacations or anything on our calendar at this point. I am capable of doing most of my job from home, so if baby were sick, I wouldn't necessarily have to take a day off...but I will need PTO for doctors appointments.

Our child care plan, right now, is that we *shouldn't* need daycare (we are on several waiting lists just in case this changes) or a nanny, starting in January H is on a shift that starts at 3pm, I can go into work around 6:30-7am to be home by 2:30 and spend another hour or so at home working (hopefully while baby naps). if my schedule requires me to be at work later we've got several SAHM friends who've already volunteered to help out in a bind.

brij2006 · October 2015

I think that plan sounds perfect. The 4 day buffer to get you from March to June should be fine, IMO.

You will love every minute of being home with baby at the beginning. I personally would do whatever I could to take the full 12 weeks off and enjoy every second, but that's just me.

formerlyGDaisy09 · October 2015

thanks @brij2006. I'd love to take the full 12 weeks too, using all my PTO and taking 2 days unpaid would cost me about $260 in income plus whatever it would cost to pay-back my benefits for those two days. and then I'd be left with no PTO to use for appointments or anything else for 4 months...I am salaried, which is fortunate in that my boss doesn't really nickle and dime my time, if I really had to disappear for an hour or two for an appointment it would probably be OK, but I think I would feel less free to do that if I knew I'd already used all my PTO. the benefits office does have to approve my maternity leave plan, that my boss and I both have to sign.

Most of those 2 weeks I'm thinking of working at 60% I can probably do most of that time from home, and maybe come into the office for an hour or two a couple days each of those weeks (my boss sees patients 2 days a week, those days there is absolutely no need for me to be sitting in my office if he looks ahead at his schedule to make sure there aren't any potential study patients coming in those days). I think coming back to work is going to be hard, as much as I love my job, easing into it probably the best idea I've come-up with!

ILoveRedVino · October 2015

I feel like the first two months were so hard and I didn't enjoy mat leave. It was survival mode for me.

I just started to enjoy it around 10-12 weeks. I'm glad I'm taking extra time since the baby is finally doing more than sleeping, eating, pooping and crying.

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