Adoption Leave through employer??

Do most employers have Adoption assistance? Do they tell you they have it or do you seek it out?

I don't think that most do, but it's slowly becoming more common. My company has the details outlined in our employee handbook with the other benefit info.

I thought maybe it had to be posted somewhere...I think if/when the time gets closer, I will ask... Thanks :)

I am a teacher, and when we were going to adopt our first son I had (of course) saved up as many sick days as I could to be off with him. Then I was told you could only use your sick days if you had given birth, not for adoption. I'm sorry, but that is not fair. Yes, I know SOME women do need considerable time to recover from birth, HOWEVER, most women are using the time (deservedly) to bond with their baby, etc. For me, I couldn't afford to take unpaid time off....not after doing a $20,000+ adoption!! If I didn't have the sick days saved, I could understand....but I felt like I was being punished because I couldn't give birth. If you have sick days saved, they should not be able to dictate to you if you may use them or not.I'm glad to see that adoptive parents are making gains in some jobs/fields. That is great! But it will never be enough until ALL adoptive parents gain equal benefits.Michelle

hubby had to use his vacation/sick leave while I had to use FMLA unpaid leave for 8 weeks. Not many companies will give you more than what you're getting.

There are so many unique situations here with employers. Since I am a first time mom, I was not really aware of what's out there with benefits in my company or other companies. Working for a large company we always referred to the leave that women took after childbirth as maternity but I uncovered that my company does not offer maternity just medical. I agree that some woman have difficult deliveries regardless of c-section or vaginal births and completely need that time. Its just amazing that there is such a wide range of differences from one employer to the next for adoption. Mom2Samuel, I really do connect when you say that new Moms are using the time off to bond, which they totally should, and that is my biggest concern. In my company I would have to get manager clearance to use my vacation as a part of my FLA and that is still undecided for me. So its as you put it so expensive and taking unpaid leave my be rather difficult. Finding daycare for a newborn after 6-8 weeks may be difficult too. Just all things that I wanted to think through before it happens. I give credit to those women who had no paid leave and figured out a way in their situations. We are still sorting it out. Like everything else that has led us to this point, we we'll figure it out.... Thanks for everyones input...and help...

Wow, I guess I got lucky. I work for a very small company where there is no policy and no FMLA, and they gave me 6 weeks paid. However soon we are adopting again only a year later and I'm not sure if they will feel that generous this time. I'm sure it's a significant hardship for a company with only 25 employees like mine.I do agree that adoptive parents all too often get the short end of the stick when it comes to maternity leave.

I believe that if a company is large enough, you are entitled to FMLA leave, which is up to 12 weeks ... you are guaranteed your job when you go back, but they do not have to pay you for the leave. For many companies this is the only maternity leave they offer as well, so you get up to 12 weeks when you have the baby, but don't get paid. The payment all depends on what your sick leave policy is and how much time you have that way. When we adopted our daughters, I had not worked for my company for a year so FMLA was not in effect. Basically, they didn't have to give me any time off. I have a great boss and we worked something out. With my pregnancy, if the doctor signs off of the paperwork I get up to 12 weeks FMLA. As far as payment goes ... I am currently eligible for six weeks at full pay (which you would have to deduct any time I have already used in the calendar year), then an additional 20 weeks at half pay. If a man's wife has a baby (or they adopt), he could take 12 weeks unpaid FMLA, but according to company policy can only use up to 5 of his paid sick days for the birth of the child - nothing for the adoption.

Wow I certainly would not have been to go back to work 6 weeks after adopting. I got 24 weeks paid adoptive leave (paid by the government) plus the option to take another 16 weeks unpaid and another 12 weeks unpaid parental leave which I can take any time until my child is 8. I live in Ireland BTW. Actually here it's a requirement of adoptive parents that one parent stay at home with the child for the first year after the adoption.

I would have loved to have paid time off...unfortunately I used all of my vacation time and they gave me a hard time for the two weeks I did take off....because they were just too busy and they "needed" me. Then they turn around not 8 months later and lay me off. Sometimes things just don't make much sense. I am hoping that if we are lucky enough to adopt again I will be working somewhere with better policies. :)

I'm a teacher and was in the same situation. My district's maternity leave policy was that you can use, and be paid for, up to 40 sick days if you've accumulated them. I assumed that I would get to use those 40 sick days toward an adoption leave. I was shocked to find out that I would be allowed to use 5 paid sick days at the most, if I lied and said my son was in poor health when he was placed with us. I hadn't realized that my district viewed maternity leave as strictly medical leave. I asked, since I was going to need to take some time anyway, if they would be willing to pay me the difference between my salary and what they would be paying the long term sub. No. Friends asked if they could donate personal days to me, similar to a sick leave bank. No. Fortunately for me, my colleagues were shocked by the policy, too. During contract negotiations that year, my union negotiated adoption leave. There was very little money for a raise so the district and union were happy to have something to offer members as a "quality of life" benefit. Any employee with whom a child is placed for the purpose of adoption can use up to 40 paid sick days to care for that child. When our son was placed with us several months later I took those 40 days and took another 4 weeks unpaid under FMLA. It's interesting to read the range of options available to people.

Kedu....That's great that your union fought for this right! My union did some negotiating about adoption, too, (after our first adoption). They managed to get 5 paid days that can be used for adoption that don't come out of sick days. I was able to use this for our second adoption. It's just sad....adding a child to your family and not being able to have the constant bonding time that is normally available if you have a biological child. I was lucky in the respect that both my children came to us right before Christmas, so I at least had Christmas Break with them. Some people advised me just to call in every day...said that the school couldn't really do anything about it. I just couldn't do that, it wouldn't have been fair to the students, subs, etc. Michelle

Just a note that you can take unpaid FMLA time after a child is placed from foster care as well. You do not need to wait fo rthe adoption, but you DO need to take it when the child is first placed with you. I took all 12 weeks unpaid and my 2 weeks paid vacation time when we had a newborn placed with us (now my 3.5yo son).

I would have loved 2 weeks paid! I got not a dime from my employer in adoption assistance or paid leave. The time I took was FMLA and it required I use all my saved up vacation time first. So I did take the FMLA unpaid, the problem was returning to work with NO sick or vacation time stored up...not so good if your baby gets sick! Thankfully at the time 2008, they still allowed us to take unpaid leave if it was for a dr. visit, but they have since stopped that. So next time around I'm not sure what we'll do because if you take unpaid leave now you can be fired. :eek: :arrow: (to top off my frustration, our health insurance coveres zero on infertility treatments so HR and I had a chat...didn't go well. But at least I felt like they had to listen to my concerns, they won't help us get pregnant when there's a medical diagnosis that would be fixed easily if they'd cover some portion of it. And when we do adopt they leave us out of the benefits too! Can you tell I'm still a little ticked about that? :cool: ) Sorry vent over!

When Ty came home DH got 3 weeks paid adoption leave (1 week MORE than "birth" paternity leave), but then ended up taking another 9 weeks of medical leave which they also paid his for because of his heart failure. I took 12 weeks unpaid. For Matty, I quit my job, and DH took his 3 weeks paid and maybe a few vacation days too. For Ty's adoption we got 3K in adoption assistance and for Matty we got 5K in adoption assistance because he was special needs. They are a HUGE company that does very well. I would like to see them bump their adoption assistance to about 10K.