I'm Mad As Hell, But I Guess I'm Going to Take It

I am five months pregnant. My son is kicking away, my belly is growing, and my husband and I are closer than ever. This should be a wonderful time in my life. Instead, it is one of the most stressful periods I have ever been through.  

Due to being pregnant, my back hurts too much for me to stand on concrete floors all day. That's hardly a surprise. However, my employer has decided that they can not accommodate for this, and I have been put out of work on disability at only 21 weeks pregnant. I am still completely capable of working, but because my employer will not accommodate me with a chair for twenty minutes per hour, I am forced to go on California Pregnancy Disability Leave (CA PDLL - the last L is for Law) much earlier than I had intended to.

You may think that this sounds nice, a five month vacation, right?  Who would complain about that? No one, if that were the actual case. However, there is a huge difference between disability and vacation. CA PDLL only pays 55% of my pay, to start.

While my husband and I ready our home and our lives for our first baby, we will be doing so at a staggering and sudden financial loss.  Not to mention the fact that I will be waiting 4-6 WEEKS to even begin receiving that 55% pay. That's ridiculous! What do they expect us to do while we wait? What if we needed that money for rent, or for food? How am I to buy the things that we need for our son on 55% of my income? We live in the bay area, which is decidedly a two-income household area of the state. Without 45% of my pay, how are we to survive?

The State Disability Office will allow me to work part-time (at an office job that complies with my modified work instructions) to make up the difference in income, but I will still be using up all of my CA PDLL and my FMLA. Despite the fact that FMLA is unpaid, and my son isn't even here yet, my company can legally charge my disability time against my 12 week FMLA period. How is that fair? I will still be working, but I am being treated as if I am already at home with my child, who isn't due until the second week of January! All those precious weeks of bonding time will be taken away from my son and I, and I will have to return to work when he is only six weeks old!  Isn't this a benefit that all working mothers are entitled to use at their discretion?  Isn't this what I have been working for the last decade to provide? 

I will be on disability for longer than four months, which is the CA PDLL limit. This means that my employer can legally fire me before my son is even born. As of December 22, three weeks before my due date, my job ceases to be protected by either CA PDLL or FMLA. I am still entitled to my disability benefits, but when I do go back to work, assuming they don't fire me, they can change my job title, pay rate, and my hours. Legally. For what? Because they determined that a chair was an unreasonable request? I could lose my job or the raises I have worked so hard to earn over a chair? How could I be anything but furious about this?

Shouldn't we be protecting working pregnant women rather than punishing them? I had many dreams about what it would be like to be pregnant, and I am finding it very hard to let those dreams go and face the reality of my situation. None of those dreams entailed me panicking over how I would buy groceries until I get my disability money, or hoping that I don't get fired for choosing to start a family with my husband. Those dreams did not involve me having to take a part-time job 45 miles from my home, or to have to sleep on a couch at my parents' house to cut down on the commuting costs from said job. I am feeling incredibly used and victimized by my employer and by the weak system set in place to protect me and take care of my son and I.

Random fact: The United States is the only Western country that does not mandate paid parental leave. (I do not suggest looking up parental leave in other countries unless you want to feel angry at your government, in which case, go right on ahead.)

The opinions expressed here are the blogger's and not necessarily those of the local editor's or anyone affiliated with Patch.