Spin-Off: What Was Your Maternity Leave?

[knkmom]

It's been 29 years since I had my first but with her I was able to take 4 weeks before and 6 weeks after paid maternity leave. She was a week late so thankfully I had a weeks vacation otherwise I would have had to go back when she was 5 weeks old. The company I worked for didn't guarantee my job either. I was told I would not get my job back, they would find a different position somewhere within the company when I did return. (I live in California). As thankful as I was to have a job to go back to they moved me from department to department, cutting my hours and making it very stressful to go into work so after 20 months I stopped working and have been home since!

 

[Skippy918]

I had 18 weeks with each of mine. 5 of those were paid via short term disability.

 

[bjscheel]

I had my first the fall after graduating college, so I just kept on with my internship and other part-time job through the summer. I knew I didn't want to go back to those jobs after the baby, so I quit them a couple of weeks before my due date. I was home for 3 months unpaid and then I got my current job which was part-time then.

I was still part-time at my job when I had the second, so I did 6 weeks unpaid. That was at one of those times when we got the Stimulus payments from the government (ours was $600) and at the time that really did help us get through the 6 weeks.

 

[puffkin]

Both my jobs were FMLA eligible when I had my kids and both companies had similar policies. I took 12 weeks with both kids. I had C-sections with both kids.
Kid 1- Short term disability covered 6 weeks full salary and 2 weeks 50% salary (for C-section). Company required all vacation time be paid out after disability, so I got an additional 2 weeks of full pay. The last 2 weeks were unpaid. He was born in March, I went back beginning of June and had 0 vacation days the remainder of the year.

Kid 2- Short term disability covered 6 weeks full salary and 2 weeks 50% salary (for C-section). I had 3 weeks vacation and company allowed me to use 2.5 weeks for maternity leave and save a week, but this was an unwritten policy. So I was paid for 2.5 more weeks. Then I had 1.5 weeks unpaid and had 3 vacation days to use later in the year. He was born in July and I went back beginning of October.