Thursday, July 29, 2010

Fingers and toes crossed!

I began the super fun paper work for my maternity leave today so I decided to throw caution to the wind and email our agency to ask if they had ANY idea when they would be submitting us for travel. I usually get really vague answers from them but I was pleasantly surprised with the response that they plan to submit us for the September 21st visa appointment! This is pretty much on target with what we were hoping since the embassy cut appointments in half during July. Let's all hope for no more maddening surprises. Seriously, I would greatly appreciate smooth sailing from here on out.

But can we talk about maternity leave for a second...

Did you know that FMLA is 12 weeks UNPAID leave? That you only get paid for what you have managed to accrue for time off? Which means I will be down to nothing when I do return to work. As a new mom. And I'm told kids have the nerve to get sick. Hope ours doesn't.

Did you also know that you can only get short-term disability (when they pay you a percentage of your salary for a few weeks) if you give birth? Let's break that down:
1. Pregnancy is a disability.
2. Because I have chosen to adopt instead of breed I am not entitled to money that I have been setting aside out of my own paycheck which amounts to me and Ben being penalized financially for our decision to not breed.

This is when Ben and I wish we lived elsewhere. Don't get me wrong, Portland is the BEST place for us in America but I am disgusted that politicians preach about family values but don't understand or support women and men who want to stay at home and bond with their kid. Don't talk to me about how progressive the US is and how great of a country this is to raise children when I can't get paid time off but countries like France and Sweden provide that to their citizens. And don't even get me started on the lack of child care subsidies...family values my ass.

But, yay! A tentative visa appointment!

1 comment:

Stephanie Hale said...

I'm glad you are blogging again. :)