Pregnancy Thread

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Draegan_sl

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rush02112_sl said:
Been lurking in this thread since we found out we're pregnant. We are due next month and tossing around in my head how long I should take off of work to spend with the new baby and help out the wife. Interested to hear how long other have taken off. My vacation hours reset on the 1st and will have 120 hours for the year. Taking the first week off to me is a no brainer, but questioning if I should short change myself for the rest of the year and take 2 weeks.
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I took a week off. But you won't really sleep for a long time. The more you can take off the better though, but you'll basically be sitting around doing nothing the first month or two during the day. Pray your kid sleeps at night. Mine did for the most part. You're really there to help your wife. The baby is easy (but you will be over protective and over safe with him/her which is normal).

My wife is due with our 2nd in a few months. My time off will be taking care of my daughter.
 
Gator

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Eyashusa_sl said:
It doesn't feel real for a few weeks at least it didn't for me. Part of me kept thinking we were babysitting and someone was going to come pick up the kid eventually.
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My son will be two this month and the wife and I still feel this way. There really is no feeling I can come up with when your own child is born other than amazing. That's coming from the male side, I can't imagine what women feel (other than the pain part, heh).
 
Crone

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Man, you bros didn't take much time off!

First child, I took 6 weeks off, because I had that much saved up in vacation and sick time, so it was 6 weeks paid.

2nd child, just 3 months ago, I took full 3 months FMLA. Now I was moving from Phoenix to Portland area in that 3 months, but still took the full 3 months. Had about a month paid for it, that I had saved up again, the rest was unpaid.

Feels good spending all that time with the new babies.
 
Moogalak

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Christ, thats a long paternity leave! I was off for 3 days for each of my kids. Sleep when you're dead.
 
opiate82

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I think that time off is key for bonding with the baby and every dad should be taking up to the full 3 months FMLA grants you.
 
Larnix

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For our first child after 14 hours of labor my wife had to have an emergency C-section. So I took off the first 5 weeks until she was feeling better and she took off almost the full 3 months. Out next one is due in March and it will probably be another C-section. However now I only work 20 hours a week and i have about 300 hours of sick leave saved up, so I am not sure when I will go back!

As soon as my wife was able to go up and down the stairs we would head out for walks and coffee. The first few weeks were really easy for us. Though having a 2 year old and a newborn is going to be the real challenge.
 
Deathwing

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opiate82_sl said:
I think that time off is key for bonding with the baby and every dad should be taking up to the full 3 months FMLA grants you.
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My kid is a little over 1 and I do much more bonding with him now than when he was born. How can you bond with something that literally just eats, shits, and sleeps? Use the vacation time to help out mom, the hormones post birth are going to make her weird, or use it if it's going to go poof soon, but otherwise save it.
 
Crone

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Noodleface_sl said:
It would be nice, but I am sure almost all companies won't pay 3 months paid time off for that.
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Boy, that'd be nice. lol. But women at my company get a pretty good gig. Not sure if it's this way everywhere, but they qualify for short term disability after pregnancy. So they get 3 months paid, and don't have to use any sick or vacation time to get paid for it. My company is like 80% of pay until 5 years, then 100% after 5 years.

So while I had to burn through all my vacation/sick, and with my last child, go unpaid for 2 months or so, the women don't!
 
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The Ancient_sl

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Crone_sl said:
Boy, that'd be nice. lol. But women at my company get a pretty good gig. Not sure if it's this way everywhere, but they qualify for short term disability after pregnancy. So they get 3 months paid, and don't have to use any sick or vacation time to get paid for it. My company is like 80% of pay until 5 years, then 100% after 5 years.
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It's usually by state. My state for instance mandates nothing and companies here don't provide.
 
Deathwing

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The women might also have to pay more into short term disability.

And, yes, it's by state. My wife's company paid out 80% for 6 weeks. New York state said fuck that, you get up to 50% depending on your qualifications(you're not getting 50%). Thanks?
 
Noodleface

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My wife gets 0% for 12 weeks as the post office doesn't carry short term disability for postal workers. Didn't know that until after..
 
opiate82

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Deathwing_sl said:
My kid is a little over 1 and I do much more bonding with him now than when he was born. How can you bond with something that literally just eats, shits, and sleeps? Use the vacation time to help out mom, the hormones post birth are going to make her weird, or use it if it's going to go poof soon, but otherwise save it.
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Every book I have read on the subject has stated there is a lot of very important bonding happening in those first 3 months especially. It might not seem like a whole lot to you, but it is a lot different for a newborn. Helping Mom out is also very important.

Noodleface_sl said:
It would be nice, but I am sure almost all companies won't pay 3 months paid time off for that.
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A lot don't. But you at least have 9 months (hopefully longer) to save on your own and/or get your finances in order to allow for it to happen.
 
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etoille

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Crone_sl said:
Boy, that'd be nice. lol. But women at my company get a pretty good gig. Not sure if it's this way everywhere, but they qualify for short term disability after pregnancy. So they get 3 months paid, and don't have to use any sick or vacation time to get paid for it. My company is like 80% of pay until 5 years, then 100% after 5 years.

So while I had to burn through all my vacation/sick, and with my last child, go unpaid for 2 months or so, the women don't!
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STD doesn't work this way unless you have like a 4th degree vag to ass tear with a csection that went wrong.

Standard is 6 weeks for vaginal, 8 weeks for csection. STD isn't a 'maternity' benefit - its a 'you have a medical disability' benefit. And the 6/8 week healing time frames are standard unless your doc says special circumstances (which must be documented and substantiated) qualify you otherwise. It's no different than another injury where your doctor says you can't come back to work for a month. Scheduled or not (example might be a planned surgery).

If your company is choosing to make up the delta between STD and FMLA with paid leave then that's something different. But STD also doesn't pay out at 100% most of the time either. Many, many places are at around 60%. When I moved to this company and they put me in charge of redoing the STD (I told them this was a fox in the henhouse situation - they said they didn't care/me saying that was why they trusted me) I had to battle with the brokers to get tiered quotes.


Some states have STD benefits separate from employer benefits as well (NY, NJ, CA come immediately to mind).

This is kind of a minefield - really wish that there was a resource for folks to consult about what their benefits look like. Most of the time people don't know until they get pregnant. For me this was also the case - but finding out how fucked up this was was a real eye opener so I did a shitload of research into industry standards and how all of this works (which is why this company put me in charge of it). What is the benefit percentage? What is the elimination period? What is the triggering event for elimination period? When does it convert to LTD? Is there a pre-existing/required 'pay in' time? Is it employer paid or employee paid? In my area it's standard benefits for employer to pay 100% of some sort of STD policy (however shitty).

Most companies don't have any sort of maternity leave (even fewer have paternity leave). It's a combination of STD (if they have it) plus vacation, sick, and unpaid leave usually taken within the time span that FMLA protects the woman's job (3 months). Some places go nuts with actual maternity leave though. PWC's maternity benefits are the most insane fucking benefits I've ever seen.
 
Crone

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Then my company tacks on a hell of a lot. It's 12 weeks, 80-100% of pay, and the woman doesn't have to use a single hour of their vacation/sick time. I'm also nearly positive they don't have to use any FMLA, and still have the full 12 weeks provided by law. I've heard of many women at my company that take the 3 months, and then use FMLA after coming back for all the baby sick, or baby days they need to use, so it doesn't count against them as our company has sick day limits.
 
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etoille

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Also I think that fathers taking 3 months leave is insane. There's like no need for that much time off. Granted my husband works from home and gets 2 weeks worth of paternity leave that he can break up however he wants over a year - that was much more helpful. He took a week off when kid was first here and then it was 'hey can I hand you the kid' for an hour as needed over the next 11.5 weeks I was home.

Hell I was ready to go back at 13 weeks. This time I am planning on going back at 10 weeks. There are opportunities for bonding at that age but by no means do you have to be around 24/7 to have a great bonding experience. As a mother or a father. It's nice but not a must. Your kid will have plenty of opportunity for interaction.
 
Dyvim

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Well today i learned that std stands for short term disability, as well.
 
Noodleface

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Got to see the little baby yesterday. As I said before we aren't finding the gender - and believe me I could go on a rant about how pissed people in RL seem to be about this decision but I won't. Anyways, the ultrasound tech was pretty awesome and told us when to not look at the screen and stuff as they were doing the anatomy scan (20 weeks). Pretty sure I saw a dong flopping around, but my wife didn't believe me.

Pretty surreal seeing your first child up on the screen. It was real before, but it still didn't feel "real." Looking at my wife's bulging stomach and the kid on the screen made it pretty real. This shit is happening.

Also I wasn't forewarned that a bunch of the pictures were going to be of a spooky skeleton..
 
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