Calling LoganSapphire and other Fed moms

[Octavia]

Hi LoganSapphire! I seem to remember you posting some tips and tricks for making the best use of maternity leave for Fed moms, but I can't for the life of me remember what thread it was in. Would you mind pointing me in the right direction if you remember, or giving me your thoughts again here? I am due just before Christmas, so even if I go late I will probably have at least 2-3 Federal holidays during my leave. I'll have more than enough sick leave to cover the "recovery period" but not enough annual leave to cover another 6 weeks (I'll just be hitting the 6 hour accrual level a couple weeks before my DD) so I'm facing at least a couple weeks of unpaid leave. DH and I can handle it financially, but it's obviously not ideal so I would love to minimize the overall imapct on our bank accounts, my benefits, etc. HR at my agency is really nice but not always incredibly helpful or quick, so any help you can give is very welcome! The same goes for any other moms here who work for the Federal government (I think there are at least a couple others, right?). Thanks so much!

 

[vc10um]

I won't be a Fed Mom for several years, but I remember the thread you're talking about and I can't find it for the life of me! Dang search function!

I'm sure LS will check in and post, but if I remember correctly, she took only the leave she earned during a biweek and used LWOP for the rest. If there was a holiday in the biweek, she put the leave hours in for either the workday before or the workday following because in order to receive the holiday pay you need to be in a pay status immediately before or after the holiday.

I printed out that post for future reference, and then we moved, and I'm pretty sure it ended up in the same black hole as the original post. Oh well!

 

[Logan Sapphire]

Hi Octavia! Congratulations on your pregnancy!

I actually used 9 hours (because I work the 9 hour day) of AL and 9 hours of SL per pay period, and then the rest was LWOP. Vc10um is right- if there was a federal holiday, I placed my paid leave (so either the AL or SL) the day before or after, because you will get that holiday paid if in a paid status.

It doesn't sound like you plan to take too much LWOP. I found out later on that supposedly each time you hit 80 hours of LWOP, you actually lose that pay period's leave. I took at least 500 hours of LWOP, and I admit that I wasn't paying attention to that, so I don't know if that occurred in my case or not. There's also a limit on the amount of LWOP you can take based on your step level- for steps 1-4, it's 80 hours max, 4-7 is 160 hours, and 8-10 is 240 hours.

I actually ended with a fair amt of leave left- around 87 each for SL and AL. I did this b/c I knew my kids would have a ton of dr's appts and get sick a lot being in daycare, so I wanted to make sure I didn't exhaust my leave.

I also prepared a memo for approval of the LWOP and submitted a spreadsheet that showed my AL and SL balances and how much AL, SL, or LWOP I would take per pay period.

I've uploaded both the spreadsheet and the guidance from our HR re: LWOP, which was pretty helpful.

Good luck!

PS- I found that so much of what goes is really so agency-directed! My husband's supervisor didn't make him invoke FMLA for either time he took paternity leave, whereas mine did and he took 3 months with the first kid and 1 with the second. Go figure.

 

[Octavia]

Thanks, LS! My understanding is that, once my doctor certifies that I'm physically able to go back to work, I can no longer use sick leave unless I'm actually sick on a particular day. For "bonding time," I have to use either annual or unpaid leave. I don't know how much time I'll have to take for prenatal appointments, but as of right now, if I take a solid 6 weeks of sick leave after the baby is born, I'll still have a little less than two weeks left over, plus whatever accrues while I'm on leave (am I correct that leave continues to accrue as long as you're in paid status?). So I think as long as I budget it well, it makes sense to use it as opposed to taking unpaid leave during that time.

I didn't realize there was a cap on unpaid leave, though...that doesn't make me too happy. I'm up for a grade promotion, which is great and I'm crossing my fingers it goes through before I announce my pregnancy, but obviously that means I go back to step 1. I'm only at step 2 in my current grade, so it doesn't matter that much right now but could potentially make a difference if/when we decide to have a second child. If I invoke FMLA, they can't cap my LWOP though, right? It was my understanding that I could take all 12 weeks unpaid if I wanted to.

ETA: never mind, I just read through the doc you attached and it only affects when you're eligible for your next step increase, not whether LWOP can be taken in the first place. I'm ok with that, it makes sense to me.

Thank you so much for responding -- I will definitely be talking to HR once I'm ready to disclose my pregnancy to everyone, but I think it's really helpful to have info from someone who has BTDT before I do. A couple of the other female employees in our program have also had babies pretty recently, so I can ask them for advice specific to our agency when the time comes, too. It's just a lot to think about, particularly since preggo brain is setting in with a vengeance, haha!

 

[star sparkle]

Best of luck to you, Octavia, and congrats! I'm not a mom yet (nor will I be anytime soon), but I'm dreading dealing with the bureaucracy of figuring out leave when it's time. It's so true that the rules and such are agency specific; two females I worked with gave birth in the last few years and for them, they couldn't be in an FMLA/LWOP status until all SL and AL had been exhausted. They both ended up taking off 6 months total with a combination of AL/SL/LWOP, but when they returned to work they had hardly any accrued leave in the bank. Hopefully your agency is more mommy-friendly!