United Brachial Plexus Network, Inc.

Are there any BPI moms, particularly to small children, that are earning income from home-based employment/businesses? If so, I would very much appreciate learning what you are doing...

Thanks,

BPI Mom

If you here of anything, please let me know too!
Thanks
Lisa

I have a degree with a whole lot of fin aid loans, and I just let the collectors call & call. I have chose to stay home to address my son's injury. I have had to just realize that working is impossible & my son is 2. I have thought long & hard on starting a home business. The problem is that I travel to all these specialist for their advise. My degree is in law & I am seriously thinking of going back to school to become a thearpist. I know they sometimes work part-time, ours does. Also, I could help my son. I hope I did not discourge you I really would like to here some other people who juggle a job(home or not) & thearpy, doc app, & everything that goes with this injury.

For 2 years I worked full time and dealt with pt/ot/st/acupuncture/chiropractic/e-stim/taping/reflexology/reiki/myofascial release (I think that covers it LOL). I was going to quit my job because I couldn't take it anymore. My boss wouldn't let me quit, he asked if I could work part time in the office and part time at home until Matthew went to kindergarten. Truth is I probably put in more hours now than if I were in the office full time.

It's very hard to juggle everything, you have to have an organizer with you at all times to keep your appointments straight. Anyone who is working can see if their employer will allow flex time, maybe taking lunch at the end of the day to leave early for therapy. I was told under the ADA, within reason and if it's feasible, they need to work with you because your minor child can not take themselves to therapy.

I was told that after the HR director came in and a new one took office. Knowing that after my son was born would have made the first 2.5 years of his life a lot easier on us.

Depending on the size of your employer you may qualify for FMLA leave, the time is unpaid up to 3 months a year, but it's an option.

Hope some of my rambling helps.
Cindy

my problem isn't keeping a job, it's getting one. i am so worried about when to go back to work. trying to schedule everything around appointments. it is hard, but luckily I don't have to rush to go back to work. The second income would sure be nice though. if only stay at home moms could get paid by the state or something. about the student loans- i got a one year deferrment, then a consolidation. i was approved for the deferrment because of Javier's injury. and in the end i am only paying $32 a months on a $6k loan for school. with interest, the balance really isn't going down, but i figure once i do start working i will be able to pay more. i wish there was something i could do from home to make more money. right now i babysit on thursday, fridays and saturdays. not much money, but it helps with weekly treats.lol

good luck to all of you,

Marlyn

During my pregnancy with my child that would become sorrowfully BPI, I was highly successful in my career. In a technical environment I was not only the manager over a large development team, but I was also THE Source for very difficult technical solutions. While I was on maternity leave with my injured child, not really understanding the extent and implications of her injury, although I was very badly injured during a traumatic birthing, I was forced to return to work.

When I returned to work, I discovered chaos. No meaningful work had been done in my absence. And from the moment I walked in the door, I was intensely pressured to produce results and make corrections. (I attribute this pressure to the fact that my employer, I later learned had a better sense of my child's injury then I did, and structured my returning work schedule around the event that I would soon need to leave to care for my new born.)

When I returned to work I discovered that my work space had been relocated to a kind of communal work setting, remote from the headquarter offices from where I had worked. My hard-copy and electronic files, correspondence, records and books were all gone. I no longer had privacy. I had to use bathrooms public to this large building floor, which was very distant from my work space and completely belittling for breast pumping... (A male janitor actually on several ocassion walked into the bathroom while I was pumping.) In my previous setting they had a designated area for not only breast-pumping, but child care. With my incontinence and breast-pumping, even in my first day, my staff made snide, rude and ridiculing remarks....

My employer wanted me to not only produce results very, very quickly, they also wanted a brain dump from me. One fateful morning, maybe two weeks into my reutrn, I arrived at work to discover a subordinate sitting at my desk. He was very disrespectful of me. I asked him why he was sitting at my desk, and he said that he had been ordered to sit next to me for the next several days to document all of my work effort. He literally was asked to record my work process, my superiors thinking feebly that they could somehow glean my intellect and creativity from his notes. I complied, despite the nuisance I needed my job. But then in the process he realized how frequently I needed to go to the bathroom. And he actually complained to his superiors, on my phone stating that I was being uncooperative.

That night I composed a very professional letter of resignation and forwarded it to my superiors who I thought were my deepest friends, offering two weeks notice. The next day, I arrived at my work space, and my employer walked up to my work space with no familiarity, s/he asked that I immediately report to a conference area. I reported to that conference area, where I was treated like a criminal, I was forced to sign some papers, and then I was humiliatingly under Security escort removed from the premises...

For years I worked for that company, and they will not provide a reference. Without it, returning to comparable work has been extrordinarily difficult .....

After I left that company, I had to relocate. I have been able to find some work, but the work was not long lived due to accommodating my child's PT, OT and post-surgical needs. Now my child is recovered from that surgery, although I believe that she will need more, I am able to return to work. But in my community, I have not been able to secure any job.....

Cindy, what is the ADA?

Worried Single Parent BPI Mother

Cindy, if you could prove that the injuries you received could constitute a disability, you would have been protected by the 504 act in the workplace. Unfortunately, because you signed papers, you probably signed away your ability to sue the pants off that former employer. It truly sounds as though you were disciminated against. You should still contact an employment lawyer and determine if they broke the law in your treatment.

You may not have to work for a long time if you have a case against them.

good luck

rich

Americans with Disabilities Act.

Cindy

I just started selling Arbonne, it is heath, beauty and wellness products (somewhat like Mary Kay) but BETTER! I am doing it alongside my current job, as well working with my 10 month old BPI daughter. I have had great responses from the products and the business plan (money making) is excellent. If you would like to know more about this please e-mail me. ~ TAra

I just went to a tupperware party tonight. just a thought