It’s Mat Leave Monday! I know that I promised I was totally done with that, but I’m re-visiting it this week. After all, this is my blog and so I reserve the right to make the rules up as I go along. I’m totally fun that way. Totally.

The reason that I’m re-visiting Mat Leave Monday is that my fancy schmancy guide to maternity leave is now available, thanks be to Bob. It’s a brief, completely non-authoritative guide to maternity leave (and parental leave) in Canada. It’s pretty! It has pictures and a flow chart! So how can it help you?

Here is a very exciting excerpt from the guide:

You can travel while you’re collecting maternity and parental benefits, just be sure to let Service Canada know if you’re leaving the country.

Exciting, right? I bet you can’t wait to read more!

To get the guide, click on the pretty, pretty button in this post and you will be taken to a page to enter your email address. You will receive a confirmation email, and once you confirm your email address the guide will be delivered to your inbox. Then, once a month or so you will receive totally riveting emails outlining what I’m up to. If you don’t want to receive these emails, you can unsubscribe at any time.

So, please, download the guide, read it, and let me know if you have any questions or comments. I put a lot of work into this, I need someone to justify that by downloading my guide. Did I mention it’s pretty? Because it is. You might want to get it just for that.

Today is the last day of my Carnival of Maternity Leave! I have two more stories to share with you, sharing two very different experiences of being home with a new baby. They show us how maternity leave can be very isolating, or it can be a time of togetherness for a family.

Susan is a first-time mom of a little boy. She normally works from home, but even for her the experience of having a small baby is isolating. As she writes in her post Isolation and insanity during maternity and parental leave, she feels cut off from her friends but is uncomfortable attending playgroups. She has enjoyed the chance to spend these early days with her son, but she’s also concerned about how the leave has affected her career. Here is part of what she has to say:

The feeling of isolation is a real one, even for someone like me who usually keeps to myself and works from home. The only time we get a visitor is when we send out an invitation. I understand that our friends don’t want to inconvenience us but it has been over 8 months now and I sort of wished that more people would visit or ask us out. It sort of makes you think that your friends no longer want to hang out with you as much because you have a baby. They probably assume we are too busy but the reality is we are longing for company and socializing.

Susan is using her blog to vent her frustrations and reach out. I know that a lot of new moms do that now, myself included. We feel cut off from our old lives, so we reach out online. It’s great that we have this option, this way of relating with each other.

Rebecca, on the other hand, has had a very different experience. She is a stay at home mom, so she doesn’t qualify for maternity leave. However, her husband’s employer provides a top-up to parental leave, and so he has been able to spend 9 months at home following the birth of their second child. In Parental Leave Update, Rebecca talks about how much their family of four has enjoyed spending these months together. Here is an excerpt:

But the best part? We get to spend so much quality time with the kids. We have 2 hour breakfasts and coffee together in the morning. We make plans for the day on the fly, based on weather or whatever grabs us that day. We go for walks with the kids with no start or end time. My husband and I talk all the time about the kids, about our plans, about politics, education – about anything and everything. And we aren’t stressed.

I think it’s fabulous that Rebecca’s family has been able to have this time together. I really wish that more fathers were willing or able to take these sorts of leave from work. While we are able to share parental leave in Canada, every week that a father uses is a week that the mother can’t use. Combine that with financial constraints and career concerns, and most men don’t use parental leave. The situation is different in Quebec, where fathers receive dedicated leave, and I wish we had a similar scheme in the rest of the country.

There is a real spectrum of maternity and parental leave experience. Having a new baby really does bring with it the highest highs and lowest lows, and by extension we experience these things during our leave. It has been amazing to read about everyone else’s highs and lows, I’m so grateful to everyone who participated. If you haven’t read all the posts, go and check them out! You’ll be glad you did. You can find a complete list in my carnival welcome post.

You might remember that I promised chocolate to one participant. Excluding myself, there were 19 posts included in the carnival. I plugged that number in at random.org, and it came up with lucky number 8. Counting down from the top, that means the winner is Nicole! Congratulations, and thanks again to everyone who played along.

Those early days at home with a baby may occasionally feel interminable, but the reality is that they are very brief. As experienced parents will tell you it’s good to try to enjoy them while they last, because they will be over before you know it. And you will actually miss them when they’re gone. Today I’m showcasing two posts that talk about how to make the most of your maternity leave, as you’re spending the early days with your little one.

Tracey felt that her original post was maybe a little bit pessimistic. She decided to write a follow-up, Honestly there were highlights. In it she talks about the things she did that made her maternity leave great, like taking some time off to travel:

We took 3 weeks in the spring to travel to Germany to visit relatives. It was a bit tough financially (the top-up helped), but felt it was the best time to go when I was on mat leave and before the little guy started to walk. It was a fantastic break from the daily routine. And we had so much fun as a family trekking around with the little man in his ergo carrier.

I am tremendously impressed, I have to tell you. We’ve taken one plane trip when our first child was 15 months old, an hour-long hop to Edmonton. And we haven’t flown again due to trauma. Well done Tracey and family!

Missy is American, and was able to carve out 12 weeks of maternity leave with each of her two babies. As she writes in My Two Maternity Leaves, she made the most of every moment of leave that she got. She shares some memories from her first maternity leave with her son:

That maternity leave began on my son’s birthday, July 30, and lasted right up until Halloween. The weather was perfect for getting out of the house most days and strolling through the neighborhood (with visions of getting my pre-baby body back. ha!). I entertained quite a few visitors (always ask them to bring lunch with them to save me the trouble). I have fond memories of snuggling with my baby, dancing to music with him, rocking him in his rocking chair, and laying outside on a blanket in the back yard looking at the clouds.

Missy also includes some fabulous pointers for moms who will be taking maternity leave. If you will be pumping on your return I also suggest you check our her fabulous post on Breastfeeding: How to pump successfully at work. It’s the best information I have ever read on the subject.

However you choose to spend your maternity leave and however much time you’re able to take, I hope that you’re able to make the most of it while it lasts.

I’ve talked at length about why I think maternity leave and parental leave are so important. And they really are. Government programs that allow parents to spend the early days and months with their children are tremendously valuable. The problem, though, is that as soon as you get the government involved bureaucracy inevitably follows. The system can have arbitrary rules, and be difficult to navigate. It can also be highly inflexible and not terribly responsive to an individual family’s needs. Today I’m sharing three posts that speak to these problems.

Nicole went on maternity leave five weeks before her daughter was due. As she explains in her post Maternity Leave, her claim still hadn’t been processed by the time her little one arrived, right on schedule. She was also receiving reports to fill out, even though she claimed exemption. Eventually, after a lot of calling and wrangling the solution was rectified, but it does beg the question of why? Why should someone have to follow up and jump through additional hoops when they have a straightforward claim? As Nicole writes:

Anyways, it got me thinking: maternity EI should be a no brainer once your Records of Employment (ROEs) are in, especially if your ROE is submitted electronically by your employer. Maternity and Parental EI is based on the number of hours you’ve worked in a certain period of time. I knew I had the requisite number of hours for the maximum benefit. How difficult is it to create an algorithm that runs a check against the number of hours and performs the calculation of your benefits and trigger a conditional approval? All that would be necessary would be for a quick check to make sure that everything is in order.

Nicole also makes some excellent points about the level of maternity pay offered through the Employment Insurance system.

Annie acknowledges that in comparison to our American neighbours, we have excellent maternity leave in Canada. However, she believes that it could be improved by making it more flexible, as she explains in Flexible maternity and parental leave: Is it too much to ask?. I think she makes some really excellent points about why the system doesn’t work for everyone, and how it could be improved. Here is an excerpt:

What do I mean when I say that the current system is inflexible?

- You have to take the leave starting at the end of your pregnancy or the latest when your child is born.
- You have to take all of the leave within the first year following the birth of your child (you can’t take some leave, go back to work for a bit, and then take some more leave later).
- Money you earn while on leave is deducted from your benefits.

The suggestions for improvement that Annie makes already exist in some European countries, which give the option of part-time leaves and give you many years to use them in. I think it’s important that, as Canadians, we don’t become complacent and stop looking for ways to improve our system, just because it’s pretty good compared to some other countries.

Stefanie lives in the UK. (Before you check out her post, you might want to read my summary of Maternity Leave in the UK as a quick primer.) She struggled with some bureaucracy of her own, as she writes in The Moral: don’t change jobs while pregnant if you can avoid it, or try and change the system. In the UK, in order to get the full year of maternity leave and qualify for full maternity pay you must have worked with your employer for a minimum length of time, starting before you become pregnant. Stefanie changed jobs while she was pregnant so she had to return to work before she was ready. Stefanie took it up with her MP and the minister, but didn’t receive a satisfactory response. Here is a brief quote from the post:

Coming back to my case: At the time, I’d been in continuous tax paying and NI paying employment in the UK for 11 years. When I changed jobs, I didn’t even take a week’s break. So why then does the state not want to support my hard work with the ridiculous length of 6 weeks on 90% of my pay?

The good news is that Stefanie’s employer stepped up where the government fell short, but the argument stands. Why do these arbitrary rules exist in the first place?

I think it’s clear that there is room for improvement in most systems, and maternity leave is no different. It is my hope that we can continue to advocate for changes to help new families get off to the best start possible.

Having a baby is life-changing, but not always in the way we expect. Sure, we know that there will be sleepless nights and diaper changes and so much love it hurts. But for a lot of moms the arrival of a new baby also means that they re-think their careers or their lifestyles in other big ways. Today I will talk about two moms who did just that.

Melissa is a Labour & Delivery nurse, and during her third maternity leave she sustained a back injury. In her post A Formula Rep turned my Maternity Leave Injury into a new career as an IBCLC? Really? she explains that she was worried about returning to work in her high-demand job with limited mobility. She struggled to find a solution that would allow her to support her family and use the knowledge she already had. Here is part of what Melissa had to say:

I spent many nights crying and wondering HOW I could work ??? How could I go and be on duty…running all over to keep up with the pace, helping people thru labor and delivery…respond to emergencies…how?? I could barely care for my family! I called many friends while I was on periods of bed-rest and had various treatments during the time I had left of maternity leave. (I eventually did have to extend the leave a couple weeks for more recovery. I ended up with a 5 month leave altogether). I was searching for ideas.. visions of something less physically taxing which could combine my knowledge of labor/delivery/postpartum and neonatal care….. and allow me to continue working. I was, after all, the major bread-winner in our family!

I particularly enjoyed Melissa’s post as well, because of the perspective it offered. Melissa took her maternity leaves in the US in the 1970s and 1980s – it’s interesting to hear about how things worked for her.

Melodie worked full-time in health care. When her first child was born she expected that she would be eager to return to work around the six month mark. But, like many of us, she found that her daughter really required her presence. Even after a full year of maternity leave, Melodie wasn’t ready to leave her daughter. Through some creativity she and her husband were able to arrange things so that Melodie could stay home, which she tells us about in her post My Maternity Leave Stories (Or How We Sold Our House So I Could Be A Stay-At-Home-Mom). Here is an excerpt describing her anxiety as she considered the prospect of returning to work:

Soon I would be working 8 hours a day and commuting 45 minutes each way for a total of 9 1/2 hours away from home. This was not an ideal situation for properly mothering my daughter. No child was ever more attached to the breast than she. Bottles? Ha! I was sure she would have preferred to starve. Food interested her, but she certainly didn’t eat enough not to supplement, and she hated cow’s milk. I didn’t blame her. I don’t like it either. Maybe if she had been a different child, like my second daughter, I wouldn’t have worried so much, but I assumed she would starve in child care and that it would be all my fault.

I’m sure a lot of us can relate to that anxiety, no matter how things worked out in the end. I know I can, even though I ultimately did return to work.

How about you? Did you change gears after your baby is born? Or did you go back to work in a different way than you expected? I know that Melissa and Melodie aren’t the only ones!

Today is the very last Mat Leave Monday. Can you believe it? I can’t. I have spent months talking about how maternity leave works, what it’s like around the world, and why it matters. Along the way I have gathered some fun statistics and I thought I would take the chance to share them with you today. So here it is, maternity leave in Canada by the numbers.

I’m not sure what all of these statistics mean, exactly. I just think they’re interesting, and highlight how maternity leave is actually used. I hope that you found them interesting, too. And I hope you’ve enjoyed my Mat Leave Monday series as much as I have. I’ll be finishing off the Carnival of Maternity Leave this week, and then I will continue to re-visit maternity leave and related topics from time to time. But I also have some new things planned. You’ll just have to stay tuned a few weeks to find out what they are.

In the meantime, I have finished assembling the maternity leave survival kit that I will be giving to one lucky participant in my carnival. Here are a couple of photos of the goodies that are up for grabs (that’s the chocolate in the centre):

Having your first baby is a huge transition. One day you are childless, you work full-time and sleep in on the weekend. Then the next you are a parent, spending your days with a completely dependent infant. In my case it was literally the next day, since I went to work on Friday and then unexpectedly went into labour and gave birth on Saturday. But even if it’s a little less abrupt it’s still huge and overwhelming and sort of incomprehensible.

Today I am profiling the stories of two women and how they made that shift from being at work to being on maternity leave with a small baby.

Tracey, a fellow Vancouverite, shares the Highlights and Lowlights of Mat Leave in her post. They range from her husband re-building the engine on his MG during his parental leave, to overflowing breast shells at IKEA, to battling isolation and dealing with a lay-off. Here is an excerpt:

I found my mat leave very isolating. Sure the first few months were busy with visitors, but they eventually stop, and your hubbie goes back to work. Then you are alone, with sore boobs, little sleep and very few people to talk to. I went to my local community health nurse group (was the BIG outing in my world for a long time). I spent a lot of time online researching breastfeeding resources, strollers and slings. And of course updating my facebook with pictures of the little man.

The ever-fabulous Brie also shares her experiences in her third and final carnival post, Maternity leave: socializing and isolation. She talks about how she was worried about the isolation she would face during her maternity leave, and forcing herself to go out. Eventually, through her various social activities she made a great friend and found some connections. Here is piece taken from the post:

My first outing on my own with the girl was to story time at the library when she was five weeks old. She was by far the youngest one there. I didn’t care though. I was happy that I had made it to the library, happy that she breastfed in public with no problem and thrilled to be meeting other moms. Over that fall and winter I was at the library as many as three times a week for story time. I also went to playgroups, the baby wellness clinic and the park. I went for walks everyday and invited people over. I pushed myself out of my comfort zone in order to make friends for myself and for her.

I really relate to Tracey and Brie. I wrote a similar post about my experience on my first maternity leave called Playgroups Saved my Sanity. I wrote then:

I realized very quickly that I had two choices. I could spend my days at home all alone, watching Law & Order reruns and slowly going insane. Or I could get out of the house and find someone, anyone, to talk to. Someone who could understand how my world had been totally rocked and why I secretly wondered if I’d made a horrible, horrible mistake. Given those two options, I chose to get out of the house.

The truth is that as moms we need each other. We need the support of other people who are in the same place that we are. Because it is hard. It is the hardest thing you’ll ever do, caring for your babies. Cultivating a community is so very, very valuable when your whole world is upside down.

PS – I’m still looking for some more maternity leave stories for next week. If you’re interested, email me at amber [at] strocel [dot] com. There’s chocolate up for grabs if you write something!

The inevitable truth of maternity leave is that it ends. Whether you resume your position in the working world or not, you are not going to able to collect benefits forever. Today I am highlighting posts about returning to work for the Carnival of Maternity Leave.

Heather found starting her 10-month-old in daycare to be harder than she expected, as she chronicles in her post called Jellybeans. I think this is a near universal experience, and one that I could very much relate to since I started my own daughter Hannah in daycare at 11 months. You spend nearly every waking (and maybe even sleeping) moment with your baby while you’re on maternity leave. Handing care of your precious child over to someone else, no matter how caring or qualified, is not easy. Here is a brief sampling of what Heather wrote:

I reached his room and one of the care givers smiled at me and put her arms out toward us. “Welcome.” This was a defining moment for me. We locked eyes and I took a deep breath. She replied, “Don’t worry. It will be ok.” After a few moments, I handed her my son and placed him in her arms. Nobody told me it was going to be this hard.

The fabulous Brie, who I profiled on Wednesday, wrote another post called Maternity leave: the return. In this post she talks about being eager to return to work, but also jealous of her husband spending time at home on leave with her daughter. This time she is extending her leave, and is looking forward to that. The post highlights the truth that there are advantages and disadvantages to returning to work, and chronicles how she’s juggled them. Here is an excerpt:

By the time the girl turned one I still felt like I was new to this mommy thing. Every day I was learning new things and re-evaluating what I had learnt the day before. I felt insecure about my decisions and doubted myself often. At work there was none of that. At work I knew who I was.

Carrie has just returned to work following her second maternity leave and she’s still trying to get back in the swing of things, as she describes in Mommy wants her groove back! She felt that she had a pretty good rhythm going while she was on leave, but no so much now that she’s working again. Especially with two little kids to come home to. Here is an excerpt:

After my first leave my work life and my home life gelled pretty well. There was time to play with Victoria after work and weekends were busy but manageable. I liked being back at work and using my brain again. But with 2 kids I really feel like I’ve lost my “Mommy-groove”. Over the three day weekend I felt almost like I had never dealt with children before. Meals were messed up, naps weren’t as easy or as long as previous and I felt a little lost.

The return to work is a challenge for most moms, especially when they’ve been off for a year like we are in Canada. It can be hard to get back into the swing of things, and to find a new equilibrium. Even when the return to work is welcome, it’s still an adjustment, and it takes some time to get used to.

Today I am highlighting two more blog posts for the Carnival of Maternity Leave. I feel that they provide a handy sort of compare and contrast in terms of the best and worst of maternity and parental leave in Canada.

First up we have Brie, who provides us with the ‘best’ part of our little comparison. She works for the Canadian government, which has quite probably the most family-friendly workplace policies in the country. Like every other employee in Canada government workers receive 50 weeks of combined maternity and parental leave. But they also get a whole lot more, as Brie outlines in Maternity leave: time and money. Here is an excerpt:

As an employee of the Government of Canada I receive an additional weekly allowance to augment the $447 to 93% of my weekly income. What this means is that I am being paid close to my full salary for almost a year to stay at home and care for my baby.

In addition, the Government of Canada provides its employees with up to five years of unpaid leave for the care and nurturing of pre-school age children.

Most employers in Canada don’t offer a top-up, and those that do rarely offer it for the full maternity leave. The benefits received by government employees make even other Canadians jealous.

Next up we have Lara, who provides the ‘worst’ part of our comparison. Lara quit her job to expand her own business, and became pregnant shortly thereafter. The surprise came when she discovered she was expecting twins. Because she’d left her job she isn’t eligible for maternity benefits through employment insurance (EI), which means her maternity leave would be unpaid. Her post Not so perfect timing details her struggles to try to cobble together enough insurable hours to collect some sort of pay during her leave. Here is an excerpt:

… I was in a bit of a pickle. I had just quit my permanent job that not only would have provided me the eligibility for maternity leave EI, but a 5 month top up.

Do you know what you get for maternity leave as a business owner? Even if the business has yet to become profitable? Nothing, nada, RIEN!

As I discussed in Maternity Leave and the Self-Employed the government may be taking steps so that self-employed parents are eligible for maternity and parental leave. Right now only parents in Quebec can receive maternity and parental benefits if they are self-employed, and there is talk of expanding their model to cover the rest of the country through the EI system. I am certainly rooting for it!

Even in a country like Canada that offers really good maternity leave there is still a broad spectrum of experience ranging from the fabulous to the horrible and everything in between. While our family policies serve most Canadians reasonably well, there is always room for improvement, as Lara and Brie’s stories show. I wish that every parent in Canada was eligible for the sorts of benefits paid to our federal employees.

PS – If you have a contribution you’d like to include in the carnival you can email me the link at amber [at] strocel [dot] com any time before August 10. Or you can send me your story and I’ll post it here. The more the merrier, please join in!