Editing Pregnancy (section)

== Maternity Leave ==

One of the things that was important to us is maternal leave. If Julie's employer did not have the benefits that they did then we would have considered her quitting, switching to COBRA, and just staying at home for a while before finding another job. This wasn't necessary for two reasons:

* Cisco's benefits are pretty good
* California's maternal leave policies are also good

To be honest, childcare benefits like at these big tech companies is actually a substantial incentive to join them. No one else can afford to do this and the market cost for them is quite high.

=== Periods Covered ===

I thought America had no childcare coverage so I was pleasantly surprised to see that a combination of policies yields the following outcome, assuming delivery day D:

* D-4w to D+6w is covered at 70% of pay<ref name="pdl"/>, with job protection<ref name="ffml"/>
* D+6w to D+14w is covered at 70% with job protection<ref name="cfra"/>

This means a total of 18w are covered through the state. Cisco fixes the D+6w to D+14w leave to 100% base pay and extends it to D+19w. If the delivery happens on time, we should then expect a total of 23w of leave, with 19w being post-delivery.

Further leave is available through disability etc. if things go wrong but I believe it is not paid.