Parental Leave

My wife and I are expecting our first child in February. We are both registered nurses. I have watched my wife work the night shift in emergency medicine through this entire pregnancy.

When I was pregnant with my daughter, 5 years ago, I did not have access to paid medical leave. I had just started a new job at a public library about a month before I found out I was pregnant.

When I was pregnant with my third child, I was working full-time as a nurse, doing everything I could to prepare for the moment I’d meet my baby.

Unpaid leave was without a doubt the most stressful part of being a new parent—and neither of my kids slept through the night in the first 1.5 years. I knew every day I wasn’t getting paid was going to make it harder for longer.

When my first was born (in Kansas, 14 years ago) I did not have any paid leave at all and had to go back to work after 5 weeks because I ran out of money. It was brutal.

I have five children. On Monday, I gave birth to my third child in my first year of teaching. On Wednesday, I supervised juniors setting up Prom and chaperoned Prom on Saturday.

Over the last 4 years I’ve had 2 babies and 2 major surgeries. All requiring me to take leave. As we only get 10 days of leave paid per year I wiped that all out before even having my babies.