Maternity leave

I rang our HR department today to find out the details of the University's maternity leave program. I'm very lucky to be working for an employer who provides up to 6 months of paid maternity leave (I can take up to 12 months leave in total but no more than 26 weeks can be paid at full-time salary). With a bit of fussing around, I think we'll manage to have one or the other of us at home from April to December next year. That will be nice :-)

I can't begin to imagine what it would be like to not have the capacity to take paid leave. I really feel for those people wanting to start a family but who don't have the same leave entitlements that we get. It must be really hard. But it's also weird for me to even be thinking about this!! I can't actually believe I'm having this conversation with HR because it is not a conversation I really thought I'd ever have. But I guess that proves you never know what's around the corner.

Imagine my surprise when my obstretrician's receptionist asked me the other day if I had pre-booked at the hospital yet! It turns out you need to complete an online preadmission form NOW for a maternity admission in APRIL. Good grief! We haven't even begun to think that far ahead (other than my cursory enquiries with HR as mentioned above). At the moment we're busy designing a new kitchen and getting quotes for that. So there's no time to think about baby things yet - that will come in January after the new kitchen!