Description: "You are in fact a Barack Obama Mzungu" @astihaas
I could end this blog here because the above pictures say it all. Maternity leave is fabulous because of Freyja. Because I was able to spend time with this incredible baby girl who has so much joy and love for life. Because I was privileged enough to be able soak that in every single day for the past 3 months.
For anyone considering adoption, one of the things I learned was that ‘maternity leave’ does not include adoption in most cases. I was blown away by this because I assumed that maternity covered all ways of becoming a mother. It doesn’t. So before Freyja even came along, one of my first jobs as a Mama-to-be was to pursue my rights of getting maternity leave.
At the time, one of the arguments I came up against, was that technically I should get less leave as I did not have to go through the process of child birth. However, I countered this saying that I did not have the privilege of carrying my child for 9 months and so we had that bonding to catch up on as well. I convinced my HR team and now our HR Manual stipulates ‘Maternity and Adoption Leave’ with equal time off for both.