Pros and Cons of Pregnancy: Games

CON: FMLA (CUE SCARY MUSIC). I already alluded to the game that is FMLA. I am glad that I didn't wait to fill out this paperwork. I had downloaded all of the forms pretty early on, but didn't bring them to my boss until last week. Turns out that the whole FMLA thing is more complicated than I thought. I thought I filled out a form, turned it in and voila! maternity leave. Which essentially is what you DO do, however if you carry the benefits for your family and you want to take more than 12 weeks off, it can get complicated.

When I told my boss that I was preggers 22 weeks ago, she told me I could take all the time off that I wanted. Thus, I have been blabbing to anyone and everyone that I was taking the rest of 2010 off after the arrival of the baby. I thought because she said it was okay from her perspective that it would be fine. What I did NOT think of was how not working would affect our health insurance. My boss wasn't sure either so it was off to the FMLA rep in our HR office. I don't exactly have the greatest stories of interacting with our HR department. Anyone will tell you that it is terrible so I was NOT looking forward to this meeting. Turns out the FMLA lady, J, is amazing! I called her and explained that I was due 8/31/10, wanted to take 16 weeks off and wanted to know how that would affect my health insurance.

Turns out that FMLA leave is 12 weeks, during which any unpaid portion of that you have to pay for your benefits at the same monthly rate that you currently pay.

Ok no big deal - I was expecting this.

Turns out that any time beyond that 12 weeks is considered unpaid personal leave and during that time you have to pay the Cobra rate for health insurance which is NINE TIMES the monthly rate. NINE TIMES.

I was devastated. We were prepared for the loss of my salary for 8 of the 16 weeks but having to pay a huge bill on top of that? UGH. I thanked J for her time and ended the conversation with, "well I guess it will be 12 weeks of maternity leave for me." I hung up the phone.

30 seconds later she called me back.

"I was just thinking about this a little more and think we could work it out."

HUH?

Here's where we get to the game. There is a "rule" that if you are in paid status for at least the first day of the month, your benefits are covered for the entire month. So bottom line, if I could somehow manage to finagle my sick and vacation time to get me through to December 2, I would have benefits through December and not have to pay Cobra. So J played the numbers game and figured out exactly when I should take unpaid time vs. my sick and vacation time to have it all work out. I would have to come back to work on 12/30 to be sure that I was going into January as a "paid" employee. So it's a working day before I technically wanted to come back - I"LL TAKE IT.

HOWEVER. (there's always a however)

This whole scheme is entirely dependent on when the baby arrives. If the baby arrives on or after his/her due date, I'm fine because I have JUST ENOUGH sick/vacation time built up to get me into December as a paid employee. September 2 would be the optimal arrival time because then I wouldn't even have to pay for my benefits during my unpaid FMLA leave, due to that first of the month rule.

GEEZ. If you haven't followed this whole scheme, don't feel bad. It took me another phone call and two emails to J to get it.

So THAT is why I went from wanting Baby S to be early to wanting him/her to be a little late...but not too late.

If the baby IS early, my boss still told me we could work something out "off the record" so that I wouldn't have to come back but it might be tricky. Keep your fingers crossed!

As I mentioned earlier, if I wasn't the primary holder of benefits for us, none of this would have been an issue. DAMN HEALTH INSURANCE!

PRO: Yes, there is a Pro to this post, if you're still with me. Our BabyCenter newsletter for this week had a little game to play with the baby - if you shine a flashlight on the belly the baby will follow it. Always up for a game, we tried it last night and it totally works - so funny!!! This poor kid HAS to think we are insane by this point!