39 Weeks

I'm a little slow getting up my 39 week post.  Things have been hectic around here. 

I am officially on maternity leave. Hooray!!!!

One would think this would mean that I am sitting with my feet propped up and enjoying the end of my pregnancy.

Not so much.

This morning, my sub called me 6 times. 6 times.  3 before 8 am. 

I want to stab her.

Because I work for a school that does independent study, we don't see students every day and things are a little tricky.  My principal suggested a sub based on the fact that she has taught for our school in the past and understands our strange little proceedures.  Unfortunately, many of the proceedures have changed and she really has no idea what is going on. 

And she is older, retired and not so familiar with that new fangled thingy on my desk called a computer. 

Stupid me, I left electronic files. 

It seemed like a good idea at the time.  I have remote access to my desktop so I can go in an change assignment and adapt lessons to meet her needs, because, oh yeah, she also isn't a science person. 

DH is ready to have my phone disconnected.

On to the baby update. 

There is no baby. =(

I had an appointment last Thursday and found out that I was a half centimeter dilated and almost completely effaced.  My doctor is hoping that something will start happening soon, but suggested that I make an appointment for early next week to start discussing induction.

Fuck!

I am pretty flexible with my birth plan, and will do what I need to do, but induction is the LAST thing I want done.  I was hoping to have a low intervention birth so that I could walk around and hide in the shower and do that kind of a thing.  But once they start with pitocin, I am bed ridden for most of the process.  This takes away a lot of the things that I was hoping for.

And.... I am not a big fan of the multiple day labor that so many people I have talked to who have been induced seemed to have. 

Let the crazy interventions begin.

Spicy Food.
Walking.
Cod liver oil.
Sex.

I think I'm going to start trying it all, knowing damn well it probably wont work.

Wish me luck and start thinking baby!

Maternity Leave

I know I waited WAY to long to talk to my district about maternity leave.  My doctor has been asking me about what I plan on doing for maternity leave for the last few appointments now, and I have no idea.   Just dealing with a new job, a new marriage and the day-to-day woes of pregnancy are enough to make anyone crazy.  On Thursday, with the upcoming break looming, I decided it was definitely time to haul my ever growing arse to the district office.

What I found out was not horrible, but it wasn't exactly good either.  And it is incredible confusing.  It took the woman in HR about 20 minutes to explain it to me before I figured out what the hell she was talking about. 

I will get 6 weeks of maternity leave for a normal birth and 8 weeks leave for a C-section.  Pay for maternity leave only kicks in after sick days are used up.  However, these sick days, if taken after the baby is born, run concurrently with your maternity leave.  This means days taken prior to maternity leave don't count against your leave, but they can't be added on to your leave either. 
Right now, I have 16 sick days accrued, which roughly works out to about 3 weeks.  During the remaining 3-5 weeks, depending on the type of delivery, I qualify for something called differential pay.  This means, the pay for my sub comes out of my pay, and I get the difference.  Subs are paid $150/day unless they are given daily lesson plans and then they are paid $120 per day. 

FMLA (Family Medical Leave Act) allows for all employees to take up to 12 weeks, unpaid, for the birth of a child.  After my maternity leave is over, I can take the remainder of time (up to those 12 weeks) unpaid.

Confused yet?

This is what it means.  The good:

• As long as the baby isn't born prior to winter break (starting December 18th) all of the leave options I have will more than cover the 10 weeks between when school starts up again in January and spring break in March.  Spring break is 2 weeks.  This means I won't be working full time until the baby is almost 3 months old!  Sweet.

The bad:

• I'll be returning to work, no matter what happens, with 0 sick days.
• In order to make the extra $30/day, I'm going to have to still be responsible for what happens in my classroom.  This means grading, planning and the like.  The sub will just be acting as a body to prevent students from shanking each other and to deliver assignments.

The so-so:

• There is no benefit to me hanging out at work for as long as I can since my sick days, used prior to the birth, won't count against my maternity leave.

I had a mini-melt down when I got home from work.  Luckily, DH is still the best husband ever, and helped me realize that the worst parts of this deal will make life a little inconvenient.  DH agreed that he will save as much sick leave as he can to make sure that he can take time off with Bug if she needs anything between spring break and summer. 

The space between spring break and summer is only 9 weeks, thanks to our funky schedule.  Now I just have to figure out what to do with Bug for that time.  DH can cover some days, but he's the boss at his job and there isn't anyone to do his job if he isn't there.  I don't want to put Bug into daycare until she is 6 months old if I can avoid it, but we'll do what we have to do.