Federal Maternity Leave

[Anonymous]

I’m a fed and recently found out I’m pregnant. I am due in September. The baby will be my first and I’m pregnant a bit earlier than expected. I don’t want to ask HR about the new federal leave policy just yet and was wondering if anyone here knows more about it. Specifically I have the following question:

1) Right now I have 240 hours of annual leave. My agency upped the leave ceiling to 300 something because of covid. Can I use my annual leave in addition to my 12 weeks of paid leave? Or can I only take 12 weeks of consecutive leave.

2) Similarly can I use my sick leave first and then have my 12 weeks of maternity leave (my understanding is that before employees could use 6 weeks of sick leave - 8 weeks for a csection)?

3) My husband is a fed. Can he take parental leave or is it just available to women?

Thank you!

[Anonymous]

The twelve weeks paid leave not from your personal leave pool is a much better deal than trying to use sick leave. In general, you can then add on with your annual leave. However, you probably do not want to run out your AL or SL, because once the baby is here you will want to have plenty of time available for doctor visits, sick you, sick kid, etc. Sick leave carries indefinitely and it will be very helpful to you in 2022. Your husband is also allowed paternity leave.

[Anonymous]

You can take the 12 weeks of PFL anytime within the first year of birth, as can your husband. You can take 6 weeks of sick leave after birth and then the 12 weeks of paid fmla and then you can take any annual leave you want to add on. Any additional unpaid leave would be completely at your agencies discretion.

[Anonymous]

1) Depends on your office. In mine yes this would be easy to use the paid leave then stack on annual. Some offices may not approve such long leave stays though. Better to ask and be denied than to now know.

2) Yes I think you can invoked family leave anytime in the first year of the child's birth

3) Yes

And just a note

1a) They have only upped the ceiling for this one year because of COVID. And so the upping likely has no bearing on you unless you just lost use or lose and will now regain it. The odds are very likely that you will only be able to carry over 240 into 2022.

[Anonymous]

Thank you all for your helpful responses. Ideally I would like to use my parental leave for September, October and November and then annual leave for the month of December. Even better would be to do some sick leave before that. But it seems like that varies with the agency.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Thank you all for your helpful responses. Ideally I would like to use my parental leave for September, October and November and then annual leave for the month of December. Even better would be to do some sick leave before that. But it seems like that varies with the agency.

If you have 240 of annual and want to use sick and want to maximize your time out of office (and your office is supportive) you should your 4-6 weeks sick after the baby is born (September), then use whatever annual will not roll over, so maybe annual for October, then invoke parental nov/dec/Jan then decide if you want to dive into more annual if you’re not done.

[Anonymous]

I propose that because if you have 240 now you’ll have a ton of use or loose unless you take a lot of vacations this year, that 300 will not rollover into 2022 so you will have to use that use or lose annual before dec 31 2021

[Anonymous]

Thank for these suggestions! Makes sense. Hopefully my agency will allow it.

[Anonymous]

Fed here. I’ve always taken 6-7 months off after I had a baby (3 so far!). No issue from my agency.

[Anonymous]

I’m taking 6 months.

[Anonymous]

my agency definitely views the medical leave as separate from the parental leave, so I intend to use at least 16 weeks of leave and then keep the remainder of the parental leave for use throughout the year. Though, I also have a couple of weeks of use-or-lose that I can add in there. and of course all calculations go out the window if i end up on bedrest somehow. fortunately i do have a short term disability plan as well...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Fed here. I’ve always taken 6-7 months off after I had a baby (3 so far!). No issue from my agency.

Same here.

[Anonymous]

I was there before the new rules, but just to warn you, you should have a discussion with your boss about expectations while on maternity leave. I had saved hundreds of hours, so was on valid leave, but he called me regularly (sometimes multiple times a day) with obscure questions.

Of course, when I got back, he often mocked my breasts when I got back from pumping. So be prepared for that. I wore scarves to cover up. (Yes, I reported him to HR. No, they did not do anything. I quit after #2 was born.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m a fed and recently found out I’m pregnant. I am due in September. The baby will be my first and I’m pregnant a bit earlier than expected. I don’t want to ask HR about the new federal leave policy just yet and was wondering if anyone here knows more about it. Specifically I have the following question:

1) Right now I have 240 hours of annual leave. My agency upped the leave ceiling to 300 something because of covid. Can I use my annual leave in addition to my 12 weeks of paid leave? Or can I only take 12 weeks of consecutive leave.

2) Similarly can I use my sick leave first and then have my 12 weeks of maternity leave (my understanding is that before employees could use 6 weeks of sick leave - 8 weeks for a csection)?

3) My husband is a fed. Can he take parental leave or is it just available to women?

Thank you!

Did you figure out the policy? Can't you also use ST Disability?