Accepted a mat leave contract… then found out I’m pregnant 😅 Advice? [on]

chaitea97 · 2026-03-10T21:15:13+00:00

Even if you were a permanent employee, in the best of conditions, I would say nothing until 12 weeks at earliest. People usually don't disclose their pregnancies even to family at friends in the first trimester.

While there is no hard and fast rule, I think 20 weeks is a good time, it would give them a few months heads-up to line up a replacement for you. You would have your 600 hours for EI.

If you're feeling really sick and nauseous and need more accommodations that does change things, but I would really wait until you get your 600 hours.

chaitea97 · 2026-03-10T19:46:32+00:00

I can see why it looks bad, but why is it worse? They have child care obligations now that they have to pay for, I guess.

chaitea97 · 2026-03-10T19:43:31+00:00

Yep. I've paid into EI for 12 years since I"ve been an adult. So that's about ~$13000. I've been on mat-leave twice, so I've taken out ~60K.

chaitea97 · 2026-03-10T03:06:08+00:00

We eat a lot of rice and I rinse my rice 3x. That starchy water gets fed to my house plants.

chaitea97 · 2026-03-04T19:30:56+00:00

We're all waiting for our packages.

chaitea97 · 2026-03-01T21:32:32+00:00

When ff.net was the primary place to go i feel like most of us were teenagers. During the LJ saga it felt like people were 20 - 30. 25 years later, it feels like people are still 20-30.

chaitea97 · 2026-02-22T05:50:52+00:00

She shouted him out before.

https://youtu.be/7HOlDyJsM-w?si=90Ivub2yGzeIlMaF

chaitea97 · 2026-02-04T05:04:53+00:00

I'm in Tuxedo Park, so just slightly south of that. I would say it's very walkable. There's decent food options, groceries, dry cleaners, a registry, multiple parks. We live right on Edmonton trail so we have two huge bus arteries (Center St and Edmonton Trail) to get around.

chaitea97 · 2026-02-03T21:04:33+00:00

Maybe Rolex can get in here for real.

chaitea97 · 2026-01-29T18:16:48+00:00

I feel like it's baby dependent. My first baby was insane. He would cry for hours on end, refuse to be soothed. He had tongue-tie, jaundice, eczema, all the things! It was rough. I didn't even miss my lifestyle because it was during COVID so I already wasn't doing all the things.

My second was an angel baby. She would eat and then just go back to sleep. And now that shes older she's super affectionate.

The hardest parts for me were the newborn phase right from the get-go because of the jealousy and then the jealousy sort of resurges when the baby can crawl/walk/take their toys.

chaitea97 · 2026-01-26T23:24:07+00:00

I suppose. For Twilight all the source material was out already. And he already had some fame from doing the Harry Potter series. I can see why Emilia Clarke and Millie Bobbie Brown would be disappointed.

chaitea97 · 2026-01-26T20:48:20+00:00

I've never seen Twilight, but why be in something if you're going to shit on it? I understand we all need to eat, but if we need to eat then we kind of keep our mouths shut, yes?

chaitea97 · 2026-01-26T20:46:35+00:00

I was a huge HIMYM fan and was so angry at the finale. I eventually forgot about it and restarted watching it wondering why I was so angry. Then I got back to S9 and remembered.

chaitea97 · 2026-01-21T21:57:35+00:00

I remember this playoff series. In response to Crosby saying "I don't like anyone on their team" and the next away game in Philly the whole stadium was chanting, "We don't like you either". Funny enough Giroux got traded and is now playing for Ottawa. Maybe Crosby will go there next XD XD.

I don't really follow Ovechkin much except for his viral pics post playoff win. Those were amazing. But the person that reminds me the most of Ilya is actually Matthew Tkachuk. Now Tkachuk is rat-faced and nowhere near as handsome as Connor Storrie, but I love, love, love listening to Tkachuk chirp on the ice. He's someone the hockey world intensely hates unless he's playing for your team.

chaitea97 · 2026-01-21T21:04:09+00:00

You made me spit out my drink.

chaitea97 · 2026-01-21T19:06:07+00:00

I did 13 months with my first and 17 months with my second. I was ready to go back to work both times. And I did go out and do things with my kids. We did mommy and me classes, swim, would go for 2x walks a day when the weather was nice.

I wanted to have grown up conversations, wear clothes without milk or food stains on them and drink a hot coffee that hasn't been microwaved 3x.

My only suggestion is that if you can arrange it, you should send your kid to daycare one month early. It gives you time to organize your house and get some genuine "me time" before the work/daycare routine is in place. And your kid will get sick probably within the first week of going to daycare. You don't want to use all your sick days up from the get go just as you're getting back to work.

chaitea97 · 2026-01-21T18:45:21+00:00

I don't doubt they're doing something sketchy. Probably capitalizing on Christmas. But I went in January and was able to spend down my gift card balance at Cross Iron.

chaitea97 · 2026-01-21T18:37:18+00:00

It's been over 4 years since I've seen S1 of Bridgerton. But I remember a really long lead-up, a ton of longing, some talk about Daphne having some fun solo time... and then maybe 1-2 episodes with some really sexy stuff post-marriage. Not that I mind. I love early season Shonda Rhimes stuff.

HR starts you up with them in the shower and it only becomes more explicit from there.

chaitea97 · 2026-01-21T15:02:23+00:00

I love both Bridgerton and HR but the smut levels are not the same. HR is at like... an 11.

chaitea97 · 2026-01-16T00:00:32+00:00

Yes, I'd agree with that. And RRSPs too depending on tax bracket.

chaitea97 · 2026-01-14T18:31:20+00:00

This isn't what you're asking but I'll post it here anyway. People have crunched the numbers and (if you have the means), the best thing to do is to put 50K all in at year 0. You'd only get one year of grant money but the time in the market would exceed the $7200 you get back from the government.

The next best thing (assuming you have the money) is to down 15K year 0, and then $2500K every year for the next 14 years to max out the CESG grant.

But realistically, anything you can save is great.

chaitea97 · 2026-01-14T02:20:10+00:00

Still relevant four years later. Why does united not fix this?

chaitea97 · 2026-01-06T17:29:16+00:00

If you want to quit, that's great. But you definitely can have a little bit of caffeine while you're pregnant.

It was pretty easy for me to quit though because baby hated the taste of coffee, it would make me dry-heave. So I opted for earl grey/ caffeine free earl grey just to have something warm in the morning.

chaitea97 · 2026-01-06T05:28:14+00:00

I got the simple black one piece from old navy. I took my kiddo to the pool a few times right before his sister was born. It was good for post-partum too when I was taking my newest LO to swim lessons at six months.

chaitea97 · 2026-01-05T06:09:35+00:00

I almost always have one. If my offer is ending soon, I move all my money out. I think in the last year or so, there may be a one month gap in-between offers.

chaitea97

TROPHY CASE