Hellobee Boards

@Mae: It wasn't this early. I used to go numb from waist down!

@Mae: Are you a lawyer?? Another one here

@Beebug: Oh we are totally in the same boat. I thought a bonus of being team green was that even if we did have a girl, we wouldn't end up with boat loads of pink. Well that went out the window as soon as she was born because I went crazy on shopping for every girly piece of clothing I could find. She now has the most awesome wardrobe, which I would love to reuse But our nursery and gear is very gender neutral. We also have a decent amount of NB stuff in gender neutral, so I wouldn't have to buy anything right away if it were a boy (although who are we kidding...i totally would anyways!)

@Mae: Nice!! I do insurance defense litigation. My firm is fairly laid back and really family friendly so if there are more future doctor's appointments with all of this, I'm okay to tell my boss.

The big week has arrived. Lots of appointments this week. Mine is Wednesday and I have never been more excited and yet nervous for something in my whole life! I have been gaining some symptons - nausea, gagging, so worn out. On Saturday I had a high temp (99.6) and was so nauseous and was crying. I felt like a little kid who is sick and doesnt know what to do. Then I had to go out for birthday drinks for a friend and fake drink and act normal - not fun.

@Mae: I couldn't imagine doing that right now. I stuggled with getting off the couch to do the dishes this weekend. All I want to do is lay down ALL THE TIME.

@Mae: Yup! Small office with an understanding female boss though. I told her at my yearly evaluation a couple of months ago that I planned on getting pregnant soon, but definitely haven't told her yet. I asked if we could get 16 weeks leave instead of 12 but the answer was "no way." Oh well. You should ask anyway. Seems like a law office can afford at least a little paid leave. If not they should pay you disability.

The good thing about May babies is we get the summer off, when things are super slow anyway, and can start back in September when things start to get busy again. I might have to do an oral argument before the state supreme court this fall, and I'm hoping it's like November and not September or October when I'll be super sleep deprived.

@Mae: That's ridiculous. Maybe you can go in with some stats as to what is normal as far as maternity leave in a professional setting in the U.S. They don't have a written policy? We share office space with another office that is headed by a male boss, and in the time I've been here, two of their attorneys have gotten pregnant and quit when the baby was born because their leave policy sucks. I think it's a mistake for the organization because they lost two really smart women just because they had babies.

@Mae: No, that's good! He needs you or else his practice is going down the tubes! He can't possibly hire a new person and have them up and running in 3 months, so he's going to have to work with your (very reasonable) demands. Plus he knew you were a woman of childbearing age when he hired you, so he can't act all surprised.

@Mae: Uh, if you're available on the phone and email then you ARE working.... Ugh. I feel you on not having to think about work. I agreed to work from home the first 6 weeks after DS was born, and then take a delayed leave, because we had a huge pleading due, but I will forever regret it. I cried every day because I was so exhausted. This time I'm not checking emails or anything for at least 6 weeks.

@Mae: Yeah, we get full pay and benefits for 12 weeks--including men if their wife has a baby. And if I work for any of that I get to add onto my leave, like if we work a holiday we get an extra vacation day. Actually, at my evaluation when I was talking to my boss about maternity leave, she was certain that federal law requires them to allow 12 weeks unpaid leave in addition to the 12 weeks paid. I said I don't think that's the case, but if she thinks she has to give an extra 12 weeks unpaid, that's always an option too. Our day care center doesn't take babies until they are 4 months so there's a month gap.

@cookie_dough: since we're in a different mat leave "club" (as Canadians) what is your employer like for mat leave in terms of top up?

@cookie_dough: YAY we can be hated together!!! I have 93% top-up (I work in post-secondary, so provincial g'ment sort of!) for the full 12 months off....! I'm still on mat leave with #1 Back in a couple weeks to start getting hours in, ha!

We are lucky.

@Mae: awwwww I wish you got more time off! Hopefully you are able to work out something reasonable with your boss.

@Beebug: we sure are lucky! I got back from mat leave on July 15, so I won't have been back a full year either before leaving again.

@Glitter: oh geez...what a nice response. How frustrating!!! Well on the bright side, sounds like he gave you "permission" to skip it if you want to

@cookie_dough: @Mae: I can't say I'm totally surprised by the reaction given the dynamics of this company but I'm really disappointed. For the first time something directly related to my pregnancy has caused me to feel sad.

@LindsayInNY: @Mae: @Whodat: - wow we have lots of lawyers! Me too I'm a corporate lawyer and work for a big NY based firm so most days I look like this

You guys will appreciate this story. The last time around I stressed and stressed about when to tell work. I told our HR person but she said that I needed to talk to the corporate partner in charge of assignments, so I kept trying to get ahold of him and he kept saying he was busy so I was getting more and more stressed. By this point I think I was close to 5 or 6 months pregnant and clearly starting to show so I really wanted to get it out of the way. Finally cornered him in the hall one morning and just blurted it out. His response - "well, these things happen" As if I was a 15 yo who accidently got pregnant. Who says something like that?? And he has kids! It's funny now in retrospect, but at the time it was mortifying!!

Hopefully you all work for more normal people

@Keds: So funny!

I work at a park district that is very family friendly, although my boss was a career woman who never had kids. Basically since the day I started she's been telling me "no kids allowed!" but she's mostly joking (?) - what she really means is "have all the kids you want but come back after maternity leave." I think that's a sensitive topic for her because the year I started she lost two employees to being SAHMs. I always planned on being a SAHM so I don't know how I'll talk to her about that one....

My boss knows that we were going through fertility treatments because I needed to take a lot of time off for doctor appointments. I will probably wait to tell her we are actually pregnant until the end of the first trimester, though. She will probably suspect before then since I'll have more doctor appointments, but I don't think she'll call me out on it.