Fed up of hearing "you'll feel differently when the baby comes"

[Greeneyegirl]

Just venting really. Is anyone else having this problem related to mat leave? Where i work everyone has always taken 13.5 months off. 12 weeks full pay, 6 months stat pay, 3 months unpaid and then tagged bank holidays and annual leave to the end.

All my friends and family have also taken this amount of time off, albeit with different packages. I know of one person at my work who, 4 years ago, took ten months.

I started saving for maternity pay during the first lockdown, not loads a month but a little maternity fund and have upped my saving in pregnancy. However with cost of living, currently remortgaging, having a newborn in Jan meaning we will have to have our heating on etc. im going to struggle after 10 months. My plan is to take the 12 weeks full pay, 6 months stat pay (adding £1000 a month of my savings to this so i have roughly £1700 but this needs to cover my share of mortgage and bills) and then tagging on bank Holidays and annual leave. When i say this EVERYONE (co workers, friends, my mum, HR at work) laugh and say "oh you'll feel differently when the babies here, you'll want that 13.5 months". Im sure i will! I want it now, doesnt mean i can have it. Its like people havent watched the news. Our mortgage is looking like an extra £500 a month. Plus food and heating going up. Its driving me mad and im struggling to bite my tongue.

The other day i mentioned that i was so glad to remember child benefit as i hadnt thought of that and a friend said 'oh yeah, that will be nice, you can put it aside every week and buy yourself a treat at the end of maternity leave'. Erm, i was thinking yay we might be able to have the heating on so our newborn doesnt freeze but okay!

Anyway rant over. Im just fed up of people being so out of touch.

I've had similar reactions when I've said I'm planning to have 5 months maternity then 1 month of holidays and my partner is having 4 months spp and 1 month of holidays.
I will freely admit that WE might change our minds or that I might need more time off for complications/recovery, but everyone seems to forget that this isn't just my decision and equally my partner might want to be off for longer or go part-time.
I absolutely hate the fact that everyone automatically assumes as soon as they hear I'm pregnant that I will definitely be off for a year
I think we've made advancement sin gender equality and then I get pregnant and realise we are still stuck in the dark ages!

Add in "Oh, you're going back full time??" and that's an extra go-fuck-yourselves.

I actually hated maternity leave and couldn't have done more psychologically. I love being a mum, but it fed my anxiety massively. Plus the lack of holiday and sick leave when you're a full time parent can do one! It was so weird knowing NCT friends who were still wandering round in the bubble months after I'd gone back.

You'll all be fine!

Yep, it’s gets wearing. I’m self employed and told everyone I was taking 3 months leave to retain my business.

i got so sick of hearing ‘you wait until that baby is here, you won’t want to leave it’

Well she’s at school now, I’ve had another baby since (same maternity leave duration), retained my successful business, my children are unharmed from it and I don’t regret it for minute!

"Oh I couldn't imagine leaving them after only 6 months" I was told when I said I was going back to work (shared leave with dh, not leaving them in a ditch). Which was fine really, because I was doing it not them.

This- I had this! So annoying. Well equally I couldn’t imagine not having a roof over my head, because I’d taken a shit ton of mat leave, and had no business to return to.

I planned 10 months off, same as you with the pay and then adding holiday on the end, but I really didn't want to go back at all. I felt my DD was too small and the settling in sessions at nursery were not going well at all.
I was so anxious about returning to work and not spending any more time with her.
2 weeks before I was due back to work I found out I was pregnant so I actually never returned.

You will likely feel different about going back to work but it is completely normal if you don't want to return and also normal if you can't wait to return. I imagine I would have actually been fine once I'd been back for a few weeks, I've heard the first few weeks can be tough