I'm pregnant; yay! But I can't change jobs for how long?!

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I'm happily 6 weeks pregnant, as planned and hoped for, but I'm starting to feel the restrictions that this brings. An amazing job opportunity has come up right in my area, something that would double my salary and involve a move to Paris. If I applied and was lucky enough to get this job, unless the employer was unusually generous, I would forego any maternity pay. My partner would give up work to move. It's unfair... In my field fixed term contracts are the norm, in which case how are we expected to time pregnancies so precisely to be entitled to maternity pay? Huffff.

Wow.
Well if you could afford to live in Paris on this double salary supporting DP as a SAHP, then go for it! Take 3 weeks unpaid maternity leave and then DP takes over. Your baby will thrive with a loving parent caring for him/her and another loving parent earning the dough (disclaimer: other family models are also valid and happy) - DP and you can choose a non traditional way to split that.

Would your DH be eligible for additional parental leave if he kept working at his firm until you went back to yours?

Are you on a French or English employment contract there?

Well you should go for it obviously, if your salary is doubling then you can afford to lose the mat pay.

Or do you mean you wouldn't get any leave? How long is the contract? Realistically how much leave could you take / would you want to take? If it's a 6 month contract for eg then you can have it done and dusted before you have the baby. I imagine the contract will effectively end when you go on mat leave (don't know how contracts work when it comes to this stuff!).

Unless you make it a very short one like Fish says and agree that with them, I guess?

I don't know the ins and outs of that side of things in contract work sorry. Especially in France

What's your maternity deal at your current employer? If they offer statutory you'd probably be better off on the double pay. Assuming you're on UK employment, maternity allowance (which you'd qualify for if working) isn't that different to SMP, its just the 6 weeks at 90% pay you'd miss out on, the 138 ish per week is the same for the rest of it.

Sorry for dropping out, got busy. I have very good maternity benefits at the moment and my contract is secure for 3+ years, while the Paris job, at an international organisation following French rules, is a single year with possibility for renewal. I would not take it without them indicating a probable renewal. Anyway, we would be happy with DH taking over as primary caregiver, and in fact that will probably happen in any case. It would surely make sense to take this opportunity if it came, especially as I just talked with a colleague who has heard that their hiring process takes 1+ year. I'm mainly having a moan about not easily taking normal job opportunities in this pregnant/maternity leave period. Thinking about it though, I'm mainly moaning about missing out on the additional maternity pay my current employer gives, I would still get statutory like most people so I guess it's excusable.

I felt like this when I got pregnant. Different situation but my company didn't follow through on a promotion and at any other time I would've left. But I knew I couldn't because my mat benefits are v good; I was so upset and frustrated and irritated that my husband would never be in this situation- trapped in a job where he was treated badly unable to leave because he's decided to have a family

'I was so upset and frustrated and irritated that my husband would never be in this situation- trapped in a job where he was treated badly unable to leave because he's decided to have a family'

Oh please.

Yops

Do you think a man passed over for promotion whilst TTC is more or less likely than a woman in that situation to commence a job hunt?

What? If I'd been a man i would've been able to leave, yes. Why the sarcasm?

OP - not sure where you're based now, but unless it's London (and fairly central), doubling your pay would be a necessity moving to Paris anyway.

Amy, I'm in central London right now; Parisian rental prices look perfectly reasonable to me

I don't understand the need for "oh please", maybe use more words to disagree?

Where to start. How about the case of the guy in America who was unable to change jobs because where he worked had decent medical cover, and he had a son with severe mental problems? He struggled to find another company will to offer him the same level of cover - or any at all. So he was stuck.

I work in the north of England for a company I really don't like. I don't have the range of jobs on offer that I would if I upped sticks and moved down south, but that means leaving a wife and kids up here. So I am stuck.

I cannot find a reference to TTC, even on Wiki, that is relevant here. I have no idea what it means.

Men and women get stuck in a rut all the time. Outside of London, in the cold, frozen north, there is far less opportunity to just say 'Fuck you!' and up sticks because your employer pisses you off. People in factories, people in low grade jobs with families to support.

I am happy for the OP. It sounds great, go for it. It's just this attitude that men everywhere, in every circumstance, can do whatever they want, whenever they want at the drop of a hat. Some people are in such a white, London-centric, middle class bubble that they don't see how other might have their own problems too.

www.mumsnet.com/info/acronyms

This might help you in your quest for meaning. It's linked at the bottom of every page.

Being stuck in a rut is not comparable to the unique to women situation of being pregnant and the difficulties with employment that causes. There are figures for the number of women who are 'let go' while pregnant/on maternity leave. Are there figures for men who want to tell their boss to piss off because they don't like the company they work for?

Yops - America is a totally different situation in this case due to the way health care is linked to employment

30,000 women a year in the UK are sacked for taking maternity leave. I was one of them.

It is rubbish that you rush smp if you are looking to change employers at the same time as ttc. I got caught in this. Got pregnant after months of trying between being offered a job and starting. So I only got MA. In my field it's all only short term contracts so they just didn't renew it at the end of my mat leave.

I'm now pregnant and jobhunting again. Next interview I have I'll have a visible bump. Let's see how that goes down with potential employers!

WHAT ABOUT THE MEN??

We're not taking about the men yops. Let's not try and being every thing back to how hard they have it eh?

TTC = trying to conceive.

Of course you can only change jobs if you can find another one. That's true for men and women.

The poster compared herself to her DH, not to every man everywhere. Do you disagree that for a couple trying to conceive a joint baby, the woman is more likely to stay where she is even if she would like to look for something else? Remember to compare like with like, as per the post.

YY to yonic- both my H and I can move jobs easily. Sorry about that yops but that's just the way it is.

Is it a UN organisation job? If it is, I would definitely apply anyway. I'm still waiting to hear on an interview I had in January. At that pace the timing might just work.

Something like that (OECD), I'm in a university right now. Anything is better than this London property nonsense, so I'll give it a go and hope the wheels turn slowly.

Why would you forego any maternity pay? There's still maternity allowance.

SMP for six weeks at 90% of salary can be a pretty significant loss, plus OP mentioned enhanced maternity benefits which of course are on an employer by employer basis.

They are indeed, but equally the £600 a month MA/post 7th week SMP is a very significant amount for many of us. It certainly is in my family, which is just as well since I only got MA first time round and SMP the second.