Ah, Maternity Leave...

What a crock! So according to federal law one is allowed to take up to 12 weeks off of work for the birth or adoption of a new child and your employer must hold your job for you for that three months. Well, that’s all well and good but am I going to get paid? I guess that depends on who you work for. I was so excited to find out that my employer offered a short term disability plan or up to 180 days for injuries, illness, and the birth of a child. I was truly relieved. I certainly had no idea how we were going to make it without my income. Granted it is only 70% of my income but at least that’s doable. Well not so much. Apparently breaking a leg or tearing your ACL is worthy for serious short term disability, however having a kid is only worth about 3 weeks of it. Yup, that’s right, 3 weeks at 70% of my salary is what my company’s plan is willing to pay for after the birth of a child. What? Are you kidding? So, if I exhaust all of my vacation and PTO (personal time off) that’s an additional 4 weeks, totaling 7 paid weeks of maternity leave. Now I’m sure that after 7 weeks I could physically go back to work, I might even be able to mentally wrap my head around the idea if I had to, but there is a fly in that ointment…no daycare will take your child before they are 3 months old. So now we’ve got 7 weeks of 12 paid for, but what about that last five weeks? I don’t think my landlord or auto finance company would be thrilled if I just skip my payment that month. Now I know what you’re all thinking, what about the father? Can’t he help? Of course he can and will and does, but we live in a big city and expenses are not cheap so it takes both of our salaries just to keep us afloat as it is, loss of one salary or the other would be devastating. Someone said to me today well at least you can start saving now (our baby isn’t due for another 6 months), I wanted to laugh. Save? We’re barely making it now what money am I supposed to save? I guess we could stop eating for a while and save the grocery money, though that’s probably not a wise choice. We could stop paying the electricity bill and save that, again, probably not the best of ideas. Well, I could always turn tricks for a while, okay no that’s really a bad idea, let’s scratch that one. So wha’daya do? People have babies every day and they seem to make it just fine. Is there some secret that is being kept from me? I just can’t seem to figure it out.