Kelly’s Story

I live with my husband and one year old baby and my dog. I've been in Maine for 7 years. When I found out that we were pregnant, I felt like I needed to be proactive when it came to paid leave by talking to my employer about it. I was so thankful to be able to take advantage of short-term disability and the fact that just this past year my employer started doing paid family leave. This allowed you to take an additional 6 weeks paid at any time during the first year of parenthood, either an adoption of a child, or the child's birth, and that's for both Mom and Dad which was so huge, but it was still so complicated and nerve-wracking.

But once the baby came into the world, I was just like I don't care! I’m taking care of this child. To have 3 months solid with my baby, and to have my husband with me for the first 6 weeks is incredible. I don't think I could have survived the first 6 weeks without him. That first day, that first week, that I was alone with her was so overwhelming, and I don't know how people can do it with their partners going back to work after a couple days. How can you even?

And then to think that a mom would go back to work in 2 weeks, or even as soon as 6 weeks… it's just unfathomable to me. To feel how I did and then to think that other women are getting less than what I had is unthinkable.

Everybody tells you the transition back to work is hard. It is super hard. At that same time I felt like my 3 month old baby was hitting all the challenges – the sleep regressions and the bottle refusal – all at the same time as I was going back to work, and so it just made it incredibly hard. The thought that kept on crossing my mind was:

This world is made up of people who have had babies... There is hardly anyone who you know of, especially in our legislature, who hasn't had children, who don't have nieces and nephews, who don't have grandchildren.

How can you, having been through that experience in your life, refuse, or take away someone’s opportunity to bond with their child? How do you, in your right mind, tell a mother that they have to come back to work?

I really wish there was a way to make lawmakers feel what every mom feels in those first couple months. It’s the hardest but most wonderful feeling, and the desperation you feel to be with your baby, and the “I don't care about anything else that's going on in the world or work.” Just having the baby is so all-consuming at the beginning, and you want that so bad, and you want time with them.

It just feels so much that we prioritize work and economy and progress, and there is no true prioritization of the family by governments and businesses. From the moment you go to school it's all about what do you want to be when you grow up? It's indoctrinated from the moment you start interacting with the world, economic progress. Not, how do you want to contribute to your community? My contribution to society, that I have a well-rounded, respectful, thoughtful child to bring into this world.

In the same 12 month period, my father had two heart attacks and quadruple bypass surgery. We thought he was dying for nearly a month. Because I had maternity leave, I had no more family medical leave or paid time off at my disposal to be at the hospital or help in his recovery. This is a completely different traumatic event for our family and it just felt wrong that it isn’t recognized. As the main earner in our family, I had to go to work. I was there, but not there. My work was ineffective. It would have been better for everyone if I wasn’t there at all. I just cried all the time, I felt like I needed to have eyes on him 24/7. My dad has made a full recovery, but if he had died, and I wasn’t there to comfort my mother or be there in his last moments, it would have made the devastation even more pronounced.

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