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@blackbird: I wanted to keep my PTO but I had to use my vacation time. So then June-December, any time I missed I just missed and still got paid. I couldn't take vacation but if R or I was sick, oh well.
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14 months , 6 weeks full pay the rest of the year 55%.
I only have 2 weeks left, dd went to her trial run at daycare yesterday
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6 weeks. 3.5 paid (with vacation and sick days) and 2.5 unpaid.
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@MrsKoala: How was that time period? Did you feel okay (aka functioning) by the time you went back?
ETA: I'm so worried about sleep.
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12 weeks paid at 80% salary. I can also take a concurrent 3 weeks of fully paid vacation time (we get unlimited vacation at my office but can only take 3 weeks at a time) so 15 weeks total.
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13 months, first 4 months full pay, 8 months at 55%, then one month vacation PTO (Canada).
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12 weeks - 2 weeks vacation, 4 weeks STD, 6 weeks unpaid; my work doesn't have official policy so I just told them what I wanted and they agreed.
I thought 12 weeks was very standard for maternity leave, but every single person asks me if I'm taking 6 or 8 weeks off, then acts like I'm super smart/lucky to take 12. So i dunno - we can swing it for me to be unpaid for awhile, and it's really once in life opportunity to get this time with my child so I am taking it!!
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@mfa_lady: I could've taken up to 12 weeks but anything over 6 was unpaid and I just couldn't afford it (DH works from home and stayed home with J after I went back).
As a FTM I wasn't prepared for how hard the breastfeeding/pumping would be. Your body really does need more than 6 weeks to establish a steady supply and the fact that I was physically separated from J so early on, for 9+ hours a day, threw a wrench into it. I had to work really hard to pump 3 times during the day, took supplements and domperidone. All the LC could offer was 'nurse on demand' and "have a 'nurse in'", which works wonders for parents that are with their babies 24/7 but not so much with WOHMs. If I had known how hard that would be, I would've saved up and taken more time off to establish a solid BFing relationship before returning to work. -
20 weeks unpaid, but I received short-term disability (60% of my salary) for 8 weeks.
In Washington State, the 12-week protected period to take care of a new baby doesn't begin until the disability period due to giving birth is over. The disability period is usually 6-8 weeks depending on how difficult the birth and/or recovery was. Because I had a cesarean, my disability period was 8 weeks.
Because my company's benefits included short-term disability insurance, I was partially paid for those 8 weeks.
Of course, I decided not to go back, so it didn't really matter except that my benefits lasted through 20 weeks.
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10 weeks, all paid, 8 weeks maternity leave and 2 weeks vacation days that I'd accrued to use
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Canada but I live in the only province that has it's own separate mat leave plan:
I get to choose between two plans:
Basic-50 weeks
25 weeks at 70% pay
25 weeks at 55% pay
And then I get a top up (and it's adjusted for when I go to 55%, making the two amounts basically work out the same, surprisingly) because my income falls below a certain level.Or special, which works out to 43 weeks at 75% pay.
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@Ajsmommy: This is what I'll have, too. How'd it go for you?
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Can I just say how very badly I want to move to Canada? I am not clear on my company's maternity leave policy, though we have many recent mothers, so I assume it's well worked-out, and somewhere around 12 weeks, no idea how much of it if any is paid.
It would just be nice if I didn't have to worry about my newborn's care when he/she'll still be so very dependent on me. Sigh.
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@mfa_lady: you will definitely survive! I survived with venti frappuccinos because I don't drink regular coffee, haha. It got markedly better at the 12 week mark so it was only 2 weeks that were really difficult.
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Received 6 weeks STD at 60% pay, then they used up the 3 weeks PTO I had banked (I requested it be unpaid since I didn't want to empty my PTO bank and they initially said that was fine, turns out you can only keep your PTO bank if your FMLA leave is for a condition besides pregnancy/childbirth), then last 2 weeks unpaid, went back at 11 weeks.
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@swedishfish: Thank you, thank you! This is really encouraging. I'll be part-time my first two weeks back, so hopefully I'll be able to manage.
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10 weeks total.
6 weeks paid by employer. 1 week "paid" by using up vacation and sick time. 3 weeks unpaid.
Could have taken off 12 weeks total per FMLA but there was no way we could afford 2 more weeks of no pay!
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@cmomma17: How was the 10 week time frame for you? That's how long I'll have, too. I know it's different for everyone, but would love to hear how it worked out!
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In Canada.
12 months "paid" by employment insurance - which worked out to slightly less than 50% of what I normally make. -
I had a total of 7 months, full salary. I was abroad at the time, but the country's policy was 12 weeks at full pay. It was the company that was especially generous.
I also accrued vacation time, which I was paid for when I decided not to return.
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@mfa_lady: I think I made it harder on myself that I needed to, just because I couldn't "let go" of the fact that we couldn't afford to take the full 12 weeks. It was hard going back when LO was so little, but I think it's equally hard no matter when you return to work! It did work out well overall, especially because I ended up coming back to work at my job's slowest time of the year, so the transition wasn't as difficult as it could have been.
ETA: I started my maternity leave at exactly 40 weeks, and LO was 5 days late, so he was less than 10 weeks old when I returned to work.
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@cmomma17: Thanks for your response! General consensus seems to be that, to a certain extent, it's as hard as you make it! I'm like you, and could easily stress and not "let go" of the fact that I don't have longer. I'm going to try my hardest to make the best of the 10 weeks I do get!
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5 weeks, no pay!
Non profit for the win (not)!
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@Rainbow Sprinkles: GAH! How did you do it?!
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@mfa_lady: ooh, I just saw that you get to go back part time at first, that's great!
It will help to slowly ease back into it. Choose to have a great attitude about it, and give yourself breaks (it's okay to feel like you're a hot mess, it's okay to be stressed/emotional, it's okay to not be 100% on your game as an employee, etc.). Be kind to yourself and you will do great! 
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@mfa_lady: I honestly felt like I needed at least 10 weeks (so 4 more weeks). My mind wasn't totally into work and I was pretty tired but it did kick my butt into forming a routine, which was generally helpful in terms of LO's sleep. I survived it and was actually functional.
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@MrsKoala: I have ten weeks, so hopefully I can handle it. Thank you for your response--I know it's too early to be worried, but I already am!
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I obviously haven't used mine yet, but it's set up as 6 weeks of disability at 80% (with a vaginal birth - an extra 2 weeks at 60% for c-section), with 6 weeks of fmla at 0%. So 12 total. I will be using PTO for 3 of the weeks of fmla, so that will help, but I'll probably have 3 weeks of completely unpaid. Or one week of completely unpaid if I have a c-section (strong possibility since he's still breech).
Your company sounds awesome!
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12 months - for the first 6 months I was topped up to 80% of my salary and for the remainder I have been receiving EI only. I go back to work Sept 2nd and am sort of excited to take home my full pay, again!
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6 weeks, all unpaid. I could have taken more time unpaid, but it would not be reasonable with DH quitting his job to stay home. I don't get PTO at all.
@mfa_lady: I was really worried about breastfeeding and sleep, and they were both okay. I did have one big advantage, my DH stays home with LO, and I do not have to leave him at daycare. However, he cannot breastfeed, or do night wakings because I EBF.
Fortunately, my LO has always been a fantastic sleeper. Also, in the early days, I still had some happy hormones helping me out. When I went back to work, LO was sleeping either two four hour stretches, or a six hour stretch followed by a two hour stretch, so I was getting close to 8 hours of interrupted sleep. One week into working, LO started to sometimes STTN.
When I went back to work, I had DH bring LO in for one feeding a day from 6-12 weeks. In the early days, I had a big surplus of pumped milk. I never supplemented, and LO never had problems.
In some ways, it would be harder to go back to work after a later leave, because LO keeps getting more fun. I also found I was able to be more present with LO after I went back to work.
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@mfa_lady: Looking back it was pretty good. I will say it felt long enough, however once it was over and I had to leave LO I still freaked out and was very, very sad and I tried to come up with ways to stay out longer.. but I think that is normal. Now that I've been back to work for months and I'm further removed from it, I'd still say it was a good length. I also had the added benefit of a phase back period where the first week back I worked 21 hrs, and then it increased gradually over 4 weeks until I was back to 40 hrs.
AND another added help was that the first week back I had my mom watch LO and the second week back I had MIL watch LO so LO didn't have to go into daycare until she was 13 weeks old. That made me feel better too... I might suggest something like that if possible to ease the transition
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In Canada - 12 months paid by employment insurance - I also got just less than 50%. I also got 'topped up' to 75% for the first 20 weeks paid by the company I work for.
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Prepare for confusion:
I'm a student, graduate assistant, and now working another job in the summer. I had LO during the spring semester, while I was working and still in classes.
Officially, we had no leave. actually, we got 5 days. Yes, days. Useless. So,unofficially, I worked out a plan with my department where I was able to bank hours by working overtime and over the holiday break in order to get more time off after baby. I came back slowly after 3 weeks and worked for another month, at which point the school.year was over. I then had 2 weeks off before I started WOH 40 hours a week for the summer. LO was 13 weeks old when I started here. I got paid for the first bit off, but obviously.not between jobs. It ended up being a good stretch of time, but I was nervous! If the department had wanted to, they could have made things difficult for me.
The fact that you get to ease into working again is great! Honestly, at12 weeks, I was ready to get out of the house!
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I was able to take 15 weeks off. I had 6 weeks short term disability paid at 55% but my company topped it up so I got 100%. Then I got 6 weeks California Paid Family Leave paid at 55%. I took an additional 3 weeks unpaid.
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@LovelyPlum: Oh, my friend, bless you for saying this. I hope I'm ready by the 10/12 week mark!
(I have a long time to prepare myself, so there's that... )
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I took all the paid and unpaid leave possible which took me through almost 6 months!
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12 weeks maternity leave paid at 100% plus 3 weeks saved vacation time paid at 100%
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@mfa_lady: before I started, it didn't feel like I was ready. But I will say, bring back is easier than I thought it would be. You will get there
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@LovelyPlum: Come to think of it, I should probably focus on growing/having the baby for now...I will have plenty to worry about once that is over, right? Haha. Hope you guys are doing great!
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@alohaorchid: Just FYI, the numbers make it seem low, but unless you are making a boatload of money normally, the amount you get from EI isn't bad. Remember that you aren't paying as much taxes, no EI or CPP, you don't commute and you don't have as much time to buy stuff for yourself or go out (at least in the beginning).
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