It Takes a Village: One Woman's Decision to Crowdfund her Maternity Leave

Parenthood is a leap of faith. Katie Feliz and her husband Esli agree one of the greatest leaps has been financially.

"Going into it, it was kind of one of those, 'We've got to take a leap of faith. We've got to trust that God's going to provide what we need," Katie told CBN News Money Wise.

Katie found out she was pregnant in July of 2015. Esli works in landscaping, a career that can be fairly seasonal and their daughter was due after the slowest part of the year. Meanwhile, Katie found out that while her company provided excellent medical coverage and allowed her to take 12 weeks of leave - it would be unpaid. Unfortunately, that's the case for 80 percent of women in the United States.

To top it all off, Katie found out that if she'd enrolled in short-term disability she could have gotten six weeks off at 50 percent of her pay.

"The wording for short-term disability didn't say a word about maternity leave. When I think of short-term disability, I think, 'Oh I broke my foot,' or, 'I have an illness or something going on.' I don't really think about pregnancy being a disability," said Katie.

With several factors going against them, Katie started to brainstorm about how they would fund her time off work with their new baby despite the challenges. That's when she came up with an unconventional idea: crowdfunding.

"So, I was probably almost close to maybe middle... end of my second trimester. So, over halfway, is when I finally made an account and was like, 'OK well we'll just see what happens.' I talked with my husband and I was like, 'I don't think I'm going to push it real hard, I'm just gonna put it out there and see what happens.'"

Here's an excerpt of Katie's post on GoFundMe.com:

"I, Katie, have long dreamed of being a stay at home mom. However we are currently unable to subsist totally on one income. While we are still in the process of figuring out what life will look like post-birth, we do know that being able to take a full leave is important to us...It would be such a blessing for us to take time to bond and to rest and to gain traction with breastfeeding before returning to work. Would you consider doing something like that for us? Thanks for being a part of our child-raising "village" and for loving us so well."

At first, the money came in slowly but as Katie got closer to her due date, more and more people invested in her and her family. In the end they raised their entire $2,400 goal.

"We just really have felt supported and felt like we do have a village of people invested in us and in our baby so it's really neat, it's unique," Katie said. "I think in the past, you know in biblical times you hear about, 'People gave to each other as they had need,' and things like that, I think this is finally a way to see that in real life."

Crowdfunding their maternity leave turned out to be an even bigger blessing than they'd imagined. Baby Emberly was born March 27, 2016 with an extra 21st chromosome. 

"We already had like a nice space of people that were connected and invested who then, in turn, were able to jump in and continue to support us when she was born with Down Syndrome," said Katie.

Katie, Esli and Emberly are now figuring out life as a family of three.

"It's kind of been a work in progress, figuring out. So I did go back after the 12 weeks ended but very part time initially," Katie said.

They took a leap and Katie says God has, indeed, been faithful by rallying her community, blessing them financially and giving them baby Emberly.

"For us to get to be the recipient of that is just pretty cool."