Meghan’s Story

My name is Meghan, I have a daughter and I am a nurse in Maine. My paid leave story started when I had my daughter. I had some complications prior to my due date, which made it so I had to be out for two months earlier than planned. I started the claim process and  I had a doctor approving me to be out. Everything got approved quickly, but I got some pushback from my manager.

I felt guilty about being out two months earlier, but I was on the couch and I was in bed. I wasn't out and about. I was in pain. I was having a very hard time.

So her due date rolled around. I had some complications and was in the OR — I had lost a lot of blood. When I came home from the hospital I couldn't even walk for two weeks. My husband had to carry me to the bathroom. Three weeks after I got home I got an email from my manager because my FMLA had expired. She asked if I had been in touch with human resources to talk about my return. I hadn't been in touch yet. I was trying to take care of a newborn, breastfeed, and start getting my body back to being able to actually care for her.

I gave some pushback, and was told if I couldn’t come back and do my job they would have to find somebody that could. I just started sobbing on the phone, not even worried about losing my job. I hadn’t even thought about that. I honestly just felt like garbage.

I followed up with my manager and was connected with someone from the ADA to extend my time off. Three weeks after getting home, I was on the phone every day trying to figure out what I had to do. For about two months I was on the phone multiple times a day. It was stressful and I was not even able to walk. It just added a lot of extra stress to what we were already going through.

We didn't have help like we thought we were going to. I tried so hard to be the mom that I wanted to be in so many ways. I learned so much, and so much that came up for me. I thought if I didn't have to be on the phone all day long and didn't have to worry about that paid leave stuff, I could have just focused on being a better mom.

My brother's wife lives in Norway and she's a midwife. She's had a year off with her newborn, her husband's going to take the next 4 months off after that, and their mother-in-law is going to be there. The baby's not going to have to go to daycare unless they want to send her at 18 months. It would be nice to choose when my daughter would go to daycare, but it shouldn't feel like that's the only choice. Financially it's a burden choosing between going to work and paying for daycare.

It's so hard because I think about the pandemic, and how it's changed so much especially with healthcare. As a nurse l completely get that. However, there's such a disconnect with this aspect of the need for family medical leave. There's a lot of confusion, and there's a lot of people who don't seem to share the empathy that's really needed to honor this time.

But it’s not because of the pandemic, it’s the system. The system is not set up to support people.

The idea behind a comprehensive paid family leave program is that there's not all of that back and forth. There’s a standard system, not switching from short-term disability to paid parental leave to whatever your employer may or may not have available. If families could have time at home with their babies and not have to worry about going right back to work, then the mom is more at ease, and she can take care of her baby better. Babies would have more attention and developmentally you're raising a better human.

Thinking about my little family, that would have been a game changer. A lifesaver.

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