Maternity Leave

As I have said before, I have spent the last 22 weeks flipping out about maternity leave. As with most workplaces in America, the airport does not offer paid maternity leave, and only offers the minimum 12 week leave mandated by FMLA. I would be paid for as much holiday, sick, and vacation time I had built up, but that was it.

Since opening, the airport has done a mandatory furlough during the winter. This year is the first year the furlough is strictly voluntary, and they had been talking of doing no furlough at all. Being furloughed was my only chance at having a "paid" maternity leave. Last week, my supervisor said that it looked like there would be no furlough, and that we would all be put on the work shared program.

My heart sank. Jacob and I cannot afford for me to be without pay for an extended time, as I am the primary income for our family. I quickly figured out how much time exactly I would have paid, as that would be all I could take for maternity leave. Using everything I had, I was going to have 3.8 weeks of maternity leave. I had resigned myself to that, and had actually considered resigning right before Emery was born, and living off of a $5000 loan until Jacob graduated in May.

Today the receptionist at work, Pam, came scurrying up to me with a packet, and said, "Fill this out before I give them to anyone else." It was the form for voluntary furlough from January 5th-March 16th.

I filled it out, and turned it in. There was an area to describe why you did or did not want furlough, and I put, "Due to your policies, this is the only way I will be able to take more than 3 weeks maternity leave and still feed my family.This is my alternative to resigning from the airport." Pam read it and nodded the whole time.

I have a time off request filled out using my accrued time for December 22nd through January 4th, and March 16th-April 5th. The only reason I am able to get the extra three weeks in March is that holiday time resets itself at the end of January, and I won't have to use my vacation time in December, since I'll have the holiday and sick time that will expire December 31 to use for the two weeks in December.

I won't know until November 15th if they will give me furlough, or if they will give it to the ticket counter girls who have seniority over me, which is a very real possibility. If you are a praying person, please lift this up for us.