Hellobee Boards

How new are you at your company? It's typical for STD policies not to kick in until a specific waiting period, and unlike health care, disability plans can use pre-existing conditions against you. I know it's really stinky, but companies have that right unfortunately.

This is why we need a standard paid maternity leave policy in the US like most 1st world countries have!

I'm not sure what you mean by nuggets. My company doesn't offer STD (super annoying), but I had to save any PTO I had and use it concurrently with my leave. I also saved up a bunch of money over the months to help us through. I don't know what I'll do for the next baby because I won't have any extra $$$ since we are paying for daycare now.

@snowjewelz: Yes, I fully agree with you there. It's infuriating to me that we have no paid leave in the US.

@snowjewelz: Well, the good thing is that we don't have to supply a doctor's note or anything. I can just send an email to my supervisor and report it for payroll. When I was pregnant, I stayed home for "migraines" a couple of times. We get 10 days of sick time per year, so I've had to get creative so I don't lose it.

@snowjewelz: My company doesn't offer STD and neither does my state- meaning I have nothing, other than my measly 2 weeks of vacation to use for maternirty leave. The rest is unpaid. I have to save and get ready to be completely broke for at least a month to be able to do it. And it looks like I will only be financially able to take off 6 weeks after DD is born. Plus I don't qualify for FMLA because my company doesn't have 10 full time employees.

If I don't work, I don't get paid. That meant between the two girls I was out of work for 6 months, all unpaid. Now that sucked and was a big hit to our savings account.

Oh yeah, NY pays absolute crap for STD.

@snowjewelz: You would be surprised how you can really make it work, I figured it's 12 weeks out of a lifetime, we can make it work for me to stay home for that time since it is a once in a lifetime opportunity (well twice for me since this is baby #2, but most likely my last.)

Some other things we did was we made some of our payments in advanced so we weren't burdened with those, and this time I'm hoping we can pay for daycare for the 12 weeks up front so there's no need to worry about that each week. This time is different with having a LO, it was easier with just DH and I to live tightly. We just really want to not rely dipping into savings if we can avoid it, using a separate account specifically for maternity leave.

Does your company offer supplemental short term disability? Thankfully I've paid into that so after regular disability and supplemental the girls I work with said paychecks are better than the real thing. I know its too late for that now but maybe for the next baby you could sign up for that?

Where I work we have STD that we pay for but as I found out with my last pregnancy you can't take it if you're taking pto and it's a measly $800 a month. I would make more than 2 times that on unemployment. Because of the rules I wasn't even able to use it last pregnancy - totally sucks. This time around I'll have far less pto time saved up too.

Ugh that sucks! I'm sorry We seriously need a better system here. Yes, you can make it work by saving and cutting expenses, but you shouldn't have to!

I just started a new job and I don't even know what their policy is. I should probably figure that out...I know our company pays for STD for everyone and I believe that would be 80 - 100 percent of salary. I think that's what you use for mat leave. I work in healthcare -- it would be pretty crappy if they didn't have a good maternity policy IMO. I live in Texas and I'm not even sure what the laws are here...

@yellowbird: Ugh really? That just seems so crazy to me! Like this is what you people do, care for people going through health-related issues, shouldn't you do a better job caring for your employees? That's not cool

My work provides a STD policy that gives you 60% pay after a 1-week waiting period... so for a vaginal delivery, you end up getting 5 weeks of pay at 60% (not 6 weeks, which is what I originally budgeted for, because the waiting period eats up a week!). Then I used 3 weeks of sick/vacation/personal time and the last 3 weeks were unpaid. While we had saved a good amount, we had some unexpected medical expenses for my husband and some unavoidable house/car expenses right before she was born, so our savings are demolished. Blurgh.

But the most aggravating thing was that everyone involved in actually paying me during leave kept dropping the ball! My doctor's assistant didn't fax the STD paperwork to the company for a week after I gave it to them. The HR person at work forgot to enter my sick time so I didn't get a paycheck when expected (it was delayed until the next pay period 2 weeks later). Really not what I wanted to deal with while caring for a newborn!

Luckily, I live in CA so we have a "decent" maternity/disability leave. I also purchased private STD insurance through my work, so I got 66% of my pay while I was on disability. But we also have the one-week waiting period... I think that may be standard for any state's disability.

Week 36-37: no pay
Week 37-41: 66% pay (baby boy was induced at 41+1)
PP 1-6: 66% pay
PP 7-12: 55ish% pay (California's Parental leave pay)
PP 12-16: 0% pay

It seems ridic that you got so little pay even after being with your company for a year!