Maternity Leave

I was informed last week by my current employer that I will be "allowed" to take all personal and vacation time that I have earned when the baby is born How gracious of them... but that I will not be compensated in any other way during my time off. As of today, I have about 29 hours accrued and will earn about 24 more hours if I do not take any time off before the baby is born. I am no mathematician, but there's no way I'll be able to take off 6-8 weeks with only about 55 hours saved.

Since this is a huge wake-up call and a drastically different experience from the last time I took leave, I have begun asking questions and educating myself on the maternity leave laws and policies in the United States. I am finding that the conversation about the lack of support is actually a longer one...

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The Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 (FMLA) is a United States federal law requiring larger employers to provide employees job-protected unpaid leave due to a serious health condition that makes the employee unable to perform his or her job, or to care for a sick family member, or to care for a new child (including by birth, adoption or foster care).
The FMLA mandates unpaid, job-protected leave for up to 12 weeks a year:
* to care for a new child, whether for the birth of a son or daughter, or
for the adoption or placement of a child in foster care;
* to care for a seriously-ill family member (spouse, child or parent);
* to recover from a worker’s own serious illness;
* to care for an injured servicemember in the family; or
* to address qualifying exigencies arising out of a family member’s deployment.

The FMLA further requires employers to provide for eligible workers:

* Restoration to the same position upon return to work. If the same position
is unavailable, the employer must provide the worker with a position that
is substantially equal in pay, benefits, and responsibility.
* Protection of employee benefits while on leave. An employee is entitled
to reinstatement of all benefits to which the employee was entitled before
going on leave.
* Protection of the employee to not have their rights under the Act
interfered with or denied by an employer.
* Protection of the employee from retaliation by an employer for
exercising rights under the Act.
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The assumption is becoming that if your employer does not have a Short Term (ST) Disability policy on you (becoming less likely), that you provide one for yourself. Since the agency I work for did not provide me with any of this information, it seems as though this Momma will suffer the consequences and, sadly, so will the baby. Studies show that the longer Mom has at home with baby, the more likely she will be to continue breastfeeding once she returns to work. We all know the benefits of breastfeeding so there seems to be little argument to staying home longer, right? But what about when you risk sacrificing the mortgage payment to stay home a few more weeks?

I've shared some of this with friends and family and I have to admit, I have some really supportive friends and family. One of the immediate statements though has been, "Ok now you need to start penny-pinching and saving for that time off". For us personally, Chris and I believe that we are doing everything we know how to save money already. We do not go out to eat, we don't pay for cell phones, we've cut back the AC, one of the cars is paid off, we but all generic food at WalMart...the list goes on. I'm beginning to get nervous that we will have to either rack up a lot of credit card debt, eat Ramen noodles every night or make a withdrawal from our 401K before this is all over. I just finished school with the dream of getting a better paying job closer to home. I know it would be very difficult to imagine someone hiring a pregnant woman and even if they were gracious enough to do so, I would lose the right to FMLA and may very well see myself returning to work only a mere week or two after delivery. And that doesn't even begin to mention that in January my new school loans will come due. YIKES!

Do you have any other suggestions for how we can save and make our money work for us before this little guy arrives?

For a great story shared by my friend Jessica, check out: Connecticut Makes History