Federal employee FMLA - Post-birth leave questions

[Anonymous]

My agency didn’t require me to invoke FMLA.

I used 8 weeks sick leave + 12 weeks accrued vacation

I was told I could then take 12 weeks unpaid FMLA if I wanted to do so.

Do NOT invoke fmla for other types of leave. Wait in case you truly need the 12 weeks

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:All agencies are different -- mine allowed me to stretch out my sick leave and use it throughout my maternity leave, but I think that's rare.

What you should count on is:
- Not having your use-or-lose reinstated in 2020; I've never heard of that happening and I don't even know if it's possible. I believe OPM would prohibit it.
- Having 6 weeks of sick leave for a vaginal birth and 8 for a c-section.

Assuming you deliver on December 1, you can take 6 weeks of sick leave (240 hours) and then you'll have 6 more weeks of FMLA leave that you can have paid out using your 160 hours of use-or-lose leave, 40 hours of shutdown leave, and 40 hours of annual leave.

If you're on paid leave, you will be able to take the holidays as paid days, so this isn't perfect math; you'll have at least 2 federal holidays, maybe 3, depending on the actual date of delivery. But this is generally what you should be thinking about.

Also, your agency may allow you to take off more than 12 weeks. Mine allowed us to be gone up to 6 months. But all of it was unpaid except for the sick/annual leave we had. If you want more than 12 weeks, ask and see if they'll agree.

+1 to this, it is totally agency specific. I am a Fed (not in DC) and my agency allowed us to use all of our sick leave for maternity leave (including for bonding time). So I didn't even have to touch any of my A/L because I had accumulated almost 800 hours of S/L over the course of my career as a fed, and just used that up instead (I took a total of six months off). Plus, I believe you earn A/L and S/L while you are on leave, so you will end up with a little more than you expect.

[Anonymous]

I’d recommend talking to some other new parents in your agency and taking a look at this: https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/pay-leave/leave-administration/fact-sheets/handbook-on-leave-and-workplace-flexibilities-for-childbirth-adoption-and-foster-care.pdf

My understanding at my agency was you get six weeks of sick leave for a normal birth, eight weeks for a C section.
After that, you can and should use sick leave if you or baby are actually sick and for medical appointments.
Then you can go through all your leave and borrow leave that you’d earn by the end of the year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm pregnant with my first and trying to figure out how my maternity leave will pan out. (Fair warning that this is a super boring post unless you're interested/knowledgeable about this stuff.)

Basics:
I'm 43 (per the OB/GYN - advanced maternal age)
We've been trying to get pregnant for four years and it finally happened - so for years, I've been stockpiling leave in hopes of a pregnancy.
I have 160 hours of use or lose leave for 2019 that I will try to get kicked over and reinstated in 2020.
I have a ton of sick leave (more than 900 hours) and would love to take as much of it as I can.
I have additional leave hours banked (comp time, etc) to cover me through my Dec 4 due date, so no worries there unless things get dicey and my whole master plan is out the window.
I have 40 hours of reinstated leave from the shutdown that I can use in 2020.
I'll get an additional 2020 batch of 160 hours of use or lose leave.


So, if all goes well, I'll have the following leave hours available in 2020:
900+ hours of sick leave
40 hours of reinstated shutdown leave
160 hours of 2020 use or lose leave
And HOPEFULLY 160 hours of reinstated 2019 use or lose leave
Not including sick leave, I hope to have 360 hours (9 weeks of leave) to use.
Ideally, I will use my allotted FMLA leave and then tack on the additional 9 weeks of other leave that I have.
(I will also have an additional 240 hours of leave in my leave bank that I carry over each year, but very well could use in 2020.)


Essentially, I am trying to have the longest maternity leave possible while still getting paid. I have many questions, but I'll try to just ask the most important ones:

1. I have a ton of sick leave and would prefer to use that first. I've read that I get up to 12 weeks of FMLA leave. If my OB/GYN says I need 12 weeks of sick leave to recover, can I use all 12 weeks of FMLA with sick leave and then take my other 9 weeks of leave after my FMLA leave? --->yes but it depends on how much your agency allows outside of FMLA. mine allows up to 6 months off total, it's up to me how I break it down. the only rule about sick is you can only take as much as your doctor certifies you need, which is usually only 6 or 8 weeks.

2. Can I use my other sick leave hours during my maternity leave outside of the FMLA window? -->only for appointments for yourself and the baby

3. I've read that OB/GYNs usually dictate that 6-8 weeks is sufficient sick leave for post-birth recovery - what are the chances they will prescribe more for an old mom like me?

4. Has anyone had any luck getting their use or lose leave reinstated in the next year? My thought is to request leave and have my supervisor decline my request because of the press of work, then petition to have the leave reinstated in 2020. Do you think it will work or do you have any other ideas to accomplish getting my 2019 use or lose reinstated in 2020?

5. Does anyone know what is the total amount of maternity leave I can take? (only 12 weeks of FMLA leave?, as much leave as I have stock-piled?, etc.?) -->depends on your agency's rules; see above


THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, to anyone willing to pore over this and share their expertise/experience. It is very appreciated!

I attempted a few of these, see the -->

[Anonymous]

OP, I'm USPS.

-I took FMLA. I used SL for the first 6 weeks, then was cleared by dr. I used AL for the next 6 weeks. Then I went back to work. FMLA is 12 weeks total.

-I was also 43, you don't get more recovery time for being older, it's 6 weeks vaginal or 8 weeks CS (this is for the use of SL).

-After I went back to work, my dh (also USPS) invoked FMLA and took 4 weeks off, using AL. We chose this rather than him taking leave at the birth (he did use 2 days SL) because we wanted to keep baby home during flu season as long as possible.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm not sure what you mean by taking your FMLA leave and then the nine weeks of extra leave you have. The way it works is that you take up to 6 or 8 weeks of your sick leave, and then you take whatever other amount of your accrued annual leave you want. FMLA guarantees that you are allowed to take up to 12 weeks, not that you get 12 weeks of extra paid leave. Also, if your office is fine with it, you can take more than 12 weeks, but again, FMLA doesn't give you any extra leave, just provides that your employer has to let you take 12 weeks (it doesn't even guarantee that you have to be paid for those weeks. If you don't have enough paid leave, you can take unpaid leave, or there are rules now about borrowing against future leave--which I wouldn't recommend unless it's really necessary, because you'll want that leave with a kid).

FMLA does not automatically start when your baby is born though. FMLA needs to be invoked. Therefore if you have your baby and do 6 weeks you can THEN invoke FMLA and get an ADDITIONAL 12.

Right, but you don't get 12 extra weeks of annual leave. You would just be invoking your right to take 12 weeks of the leave you've already accrued (or borrowed against future leave). And I don't think you can take six weeks of sick leave, invoke FMLA, and then get to take more sick leave (unless you or your baby have some medical condition that requires it). If you took six weeks of sick leave and then invoked FMLA, it would give you the right to take 12 weeks of annual leave. Invoking FMLA or not doesn't change the amount of paid leave you have accrued and can use.

You can invoke FMLAa after using sick leave and annual leave. The FMLA reason is ‘bonding with baby.’ I did this twice (got 7 mth off with my first and 6 mths off with my second-always took FMLA after using up my paid leave). OP, use your 6/8 weeks of sick leave immediately after baby is born. Then use annual leave/comp time, etc. Then take FMLA. Take as much time off with baby as you want/possibly can. Work can wait. Congrats!

[Anonymous]

The handbook that someone linked to here was really helpful for me. there are some examples at the end. what stood out for me was:

Tip:Since sick leave and FMLA leave are two separate entitlements, an employee does not need to invoke FMLA to use sick leave for her period of recovery from childbirth. She can use 6-8 weeks of sick leave for recovery from childbirth, then later invoke FMLA to bond with her baby.

So, I used 6 weeks of sick leave for recover from childbirth. Then I invoked FMLA for 12 weeks so had 18 weeks. FMLA was a mixture of AL and LWOP.

What is buried in this handbook is its policy about holidays during leave/FMLA. We are entitled to holidays, BUT, only if either the day before or day after is a day in pay status. So i made sure that day before/after labor day, columbus day, etc was an AL day so I got paid for those days. Those holidays did not come out of my 480 hours of FMLA allowance. So when I went back to work and decided I needed to stay home one day a week to be with my baby, I had about 5 days worth' of FMLA left that I used, because those holidays occurred during my 12 weeks of leave.

But, it sounds like you have a ton of leave. Whatever you do, make sure you keep some for after your return. You may want to ease back into work (not jump back into full time), and you will need to take time off if your child is going to daycare for sick days.

[Anonymous]

Count on 6 weeks for vaginal or 8 weeks for c section, but you will get whatever your doctor writes for. I had a complicated pregnancy and my doctor thought it might take me longer to recover and so wrote me a note for 10 or 12 weeks (I don’t recall).

Also, I did not invoke FMLA until I had run out of paid leave. So I used my 10 weeks of SL, then my AL, then invoked FMLA for a few weeks of unpaid leave.

Actually, I alternated a week of AL and a week of unpaid leave (covered by FMLA) at the end so that I was getting half a paycheck the whole time.