Amy’s Story:
I gave birth to my beautiful daughter but soon after found out she needed extra stay in the NICU. My husband and I were extremely stressed and heartbroken to be discharged from the hospital without Aubrey.
At the time, I was employed at a Portland nonprofit. I worked with at-risk students and led a team of youth workers. I had no family leave, no benefits, and no financial support from my employer. My husband and I could not afford to be at home to take care of my daughter. I returned to work after a very short 4 weeks of unpaid time off. I returned to work part time because my family just could not afford for me to take any more unpaid time off. To this day, my biggest regret is that I did not spend enough time with my newborn daughter.
It was such a time of financial hardship; I drained my savings and retirement account to pay for the four weeks I took off without pay. The hospital bill took us two year to pay off.
But for me what was even worse was the strain on our tender bonding time with our daughter. We deeply relied on help from family. I don’t know what I would have done without my family’s help. I worked part-time because it did not make sense to work full time to break even and pay for child care full time. Oregon has one of the highest cost of child care in the country and we felt that immensely.It would have been a huge difference if we had paid family leave. I would have had time to nurture my newborn and without worry when I had to take her to all her doctor and lab follow up appointments. And I would have returned to work with a different mindset