“We welcomed our first child in July and are so excited that our DC-based family is growing. And we know that our time at home with the new baby is precious. Being able to focus all of our time and energy on our daughter during her first weeks is crucial to our success as parents and her long term well-being. Unfortunately, Rob's work has no paid parental leave. Jessica's work just expanded its paid leave policy from 10 to 20 days. We cannot imagine both being back at work when our baby is 4-weeks old. Fortunately, we both have vacation and Jessica has been saving sick days. However, we believe parenting is not a vacation, nor is it an illness. We will inevitably have to take unpaid leave in order to spend as much time at home with the baby as we think is best for all three of us.”
