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Would insurance be a factor for you or is it through your hubby? I think PT doesn't get health benefits.

I plan on coming back FT, but am going to see if I can work PT from home. I haven't discussed maternity leave with my work yet though.

It's really rare for someone in my industry to work PT because the nature of our work kind of forces us to be available during working hours, other than vacations of course. There are some women who get away with having a 4 day work week, but it's not even talked about it's so rare. It's much more likely that I would be able to work out a work-from-home once or twice a week schedule, but I"m still kind of low on the totem pole for even that.

As a project manager I think it depends on what they want to accommodate and the projects you are working on. What is your current week like now? I know we typically have meetings every day for various projects and various update meetings, so it is a pain if you constantly have to schedule around someone being out every Tues/Thurs (for example).

I don't think my work would let me, but I think they would consider letting me do some flex time and/or work from home. I think my ideal would be to work about 30hrs/week, but just in the office MWF for 8-9 hr days and work the rest from home.

In the end it does just depend. There may be more relaxed projects that only need part time PM's on it and working 30hrs/week might be enough.

A friend of mine is a computer engineer and just went part time and loves it. But she also ends up working a little extra outside her hours. Her options were "let me go part time or i quit" and she was serious about it. She doesn't get benefits anymore, which makes it tough. She works 10 hour days Mon, Tues, and Thurs, and has Wedn and Fri off at home.

I think it depends on your industry and position. I'm a SAHM right now while I finish my grad degree, but I hope to go back to work part-time sometime next year. Luckily, part-time positions are very popular in my field. Also, remember that part-time work is almost never salaried, usually paid at a lower hourly rate than full time, and usually get pro-rated or reduced benefits such as PTO, sick time, holidays, retirement, etc...

My job very very rarely allows PT. It's a very traditional 8-4:30 FT office. That being said, I mentioned to my boss (we have an excellent relationship) that I may not come back after the baby is born. We've been talking about it for a few weeks and eventually I asked if PT was an option. He said he is sure it could be worked out.

I just got my part time schedule (2 days in the office and 1 day working from home) approved. I waited until I was about 7 weeks into my maternity leave to bring it up. I knew it would get approved though because I have a customer that was willing to fight for me because he didn't want me to quit (I work for a government contractor). I thought this would be the perfect solution and maybe it is, but the hardest part is part time day care. It's very very hard to find for infants so I am super stressed about that, and we may end up paying for a fulltime spot for her somewhere...

I have been at this for several years now, trying to find the balance between part time and full time. I'm in the consulting field and work for a firm that promotes work life balance (one of the Working Mother's top 100 places to work for working mothers, although that is debatable if you ask me ). I have worked FT mostly, but have also worked a 80% workweek and am now at a 60% workweek. I have been going back and forth between these as life and my work situation changes. I find that in my business, it is very difficult to actually work part time without doing extra hours. But then you aren't getting compensated. At 80% I was actually working 100% and not getting paid as such. I'm hoping with my new 60% schedule, it will force me to just walk away at 3pm like I have it planned out, but it's hard. Everyone wants to do what is best for the client, even if it means taking a meeting at 5pm on a Friday.
Good luck with your schedule!

I'm an independent contractor and when I started working again when Wagon Jr. was 18 months, I started at 3 days a week and ramped up to 4 eventually. When LMW was born I had to take unpaid maternity leave, which sucked, but then I was able to work 3 days a week and then ramp up to 4 again, which was so great for transitioning. I'm now 4 days a week and I feel like I have the best of both worlds!! I absolutely love that every weekend is a long weekend for me and I get one day with LMW all by myself (before she was born, it was a day totally to myself because WJ would go to daycare!).

At my office PTs are viewed as not being readily available not able to get the work done. What I mean by that is at my work salaried people sometimes need to work at night or weekends to get projects done. The one PT person we had always complained that she couldn't work more than her m-w (even though she was salaried).