Printable View
Well i'm super clucky but Dh and I have decided to wait a few months before TTC so that we will be entitled to paid maternity leave as it is meant to come in next year. I had to go back to work 6mths after Olive was born and spent half our savings.
So I was wondering is anyone else waiting until this happens or am I the only one?
People think we are weird!
No, while we are TTC - have been for almost 4 years - I won't seriously get into charting and temping until I've been in a permanent job for 6 months, so I can guarantee Maternity Leave. Just good sense I reckon!
DH wanted to but I convinced him otherwise.
I'm not convinced that they will bring in any type of paid mat. leave and my theory was that there will be so many people doing the same thing it will be even harder to get decent service in a hospital so we opted not to wait.
Not to mention I didn't want to change from our original plan to have kids close in age.
There will likely be an election before it comes in, so I am not hedging my bets on it actually happening just yet.
I think the scheme is a lot better than what we have now, and as I run my own business I think I still qualify - not certain about that. But reality for me is we would have to put of TTC for quite a while due to my risks of prem labour and I don't want to put it off and then go through a long TTC process and then be a lot older when we want to try for No'3 :D
You're not weird - we did talk about it but..at 35 I think it would be foolish of me to throw a single cycle away! And we will struggle financially with another unpaid mat leave.
We obviously didn't wait either (but after years of TTCing there was no way we would have anyway)
But in the end it isn't going to be significantly different to what you get with the baby bonus now. I think that the maximum additional benefit you can get (depending on your tax and centrelink benefits etc) is about $2000 more than the baby bonus. (And I am out of pocket far more than that just on my Obs plannign and management fee!)
No, I don't think you're weird either!
We're waiting to see what will happen with it before TTC #2.
We're considering waiting too, its only a few months now.
My concern is what work will do with the maternity leave they already provide; we're due for a new certified agreement soon, so they may look at reducing things from their end once the govt ppl comes in.
Well i'm really thinking that we will ttc early april and if it happens that our baby is born before next yr so be it but the paid maternity leave is still more finacially viable for us. The 5 grand baby bonus is great but we still spent 10 grand of our saving when I went on ML for 6mths. Mind you dh was earning less then but we get around $50 per fortnight parenting payment which we will probably have to pay back come tax time as we have under estimated. I have managed to continue working p/t and want to until the kids start school but i'm not sure this will happen without ppl. Such a confusing decision!