By Carson Hall
Mrs. Jillian Evans has realized more clearly that life isn’t just about her, especially after the birth of her new baby.
“Now my life is about making sure that she is healthy, well taken care of, fed and happy every day,” she said.
Nine months preparing for a new chapter in their life. Now they have to be away for at least another month and a half from the students they see every day.
An extraordinary total of seven teachers are having babies this school year. In addition to Mrs. Evans having her girl, phys ed teacher Mr. Devin Wilburn, biology teacher Mrs. Haley Hissong, English teacher Mrs Tayler Lennon, and art teacher Ms. Alicia Fuller all have had babies recently. Agriculture teacher Mrs. Nicole Lodl and her husband English teacher Mr. James Lodl are due at the end of December.
Mrs. Lennon decided to resign from being an English teacher and has chosen to become a stay-at-home mom. Mrs. Hissong has also recently decided to resign from teaching and stay at home after this semester, but she may sub for different schools.
When teachers are on maternity leave they get a choice on how long they want to be gone. They can take 6 to 12 weeks off of school, or they can take a whole year off.
Teachers do get paid while on leave, but in order for them to get paid they have to use their sick days and their benefits/personal days. If they aren’t able to use those days, then they don’t get paid.
Mrs. Evans, math teacher, had her first baby on July 20 and missed the first nine weeks of the school year while on maternity leave.
She has been back in school for about two months
Whenever Mrs. Evans is in school, she focuses only on school. When Mrs. Evans is at home, she is taking care of her daughter.
Mrs. Evans and her husband decided to name their daughter Sadie Elizabeth Evans. Sadie was the name they liked, and Elizabeth was influenced by the name of Mrs. Evans’ grandmother.
Mrs. Evans said she hated how much school she missed on maternity leave. What she disliked the most was that she didn’t get to start in August; instead, she began the school year in October.
She appreciated the time off because she got to spend a lot more time with her newborn Sadie.
When Mrs. Evans found out that she was pregnant with her baby she was surprised.
“I did not think that I was pregnant at all,” Mrs. Evans said. “It was just a Thursday night and I went home and there you go, I found out I was pregnant.”
Mrs. Evans had to prepare for the sub, former Ivy Tech math professor Mr. Michael Shaffer, to take over for her while she was on maternity leave. She made sure to write down everything that needed to be covered while she was gone and the big things he needed to focus on.
Other than that she didn’t make daily sub plans, create homework assignments or do grading. Because her sub was an experienced math teacher, Mrs. Evans tried to let the sub have freedom to do his own thing.
Mrs. Evans doesn’t have to worry about Sadie as much during the school day. This is because she always knows that someone trustworthy and someone who has good experience is watching Sadie.
Her mother-in-law watches Sadie every day while Mrs. Evans is at work. When she gets off work she picks up Sadie and then it repeats daily.
Mrs. Evans said she is blessed to have her husband by her side. She said her husband has been her biggest support with this new baby and has been helpful with doing what she asks.
Her mother-in-law has been supportive as well by being able to take Sadie every day and take care of her.
She said her mom has also been supportive by being there for Mrs. Evans the whole way through this pregnancy.
Mrs. Evans has been happy recently watching Sadie grow but also knowing that her daughter is safe and healthy.
She also has been sad because of how fast Sadie is growing and not being able to see her all the time. In addition to that she is also sad because she might not be there to hear her say her first word or watch her roll over for the first time.
While Mrs. Evans has just recently had her baby, she isn’t the only one.
Biology and ICP teacher Mrs. Hissong had her baby boy Creigh on Sept. 22.
Mrs. Hissong’s home life hasn’t changed as much besides being home more with her family. Obviously her work life has been put on hold while being on maternity leave, she said.
Mrs. Hissong was already prepared for her new coming baby because this isn’t her first. Creigh is her third little boy. So the only big change was to get prepared with all the baby stuff they needed, she said.
Knowing that she was going to be gone from school for six weeks stressed her out.
“The idea of not being able to teach my students for so long freaked me out for lack of fancier terms,” she said.
Although Mrs. Hissong didn’t let the stress get to her, she did let the Lord get to her, she said.
“After praying about it and really feeling the pull from the Lord to take some more time off, I ended up with 11 weeks out total,” she said.
She returned recently on Dec. 9 and will finish out this semester with finals coming up to help her students. After all the finals are finished she will become a full stay-at-home mom.
Mrs. Hissong and her husband planned on having another baby but they didn’t choose when they wanted to. She said they waited till God chose when the time was right to have a baby. It has been a slight adjustment to family since Creigh and her oldest son Cohen are five years apart, she said.
Mrs. Hissong was so happy when she found out she was having a third boy. The reason for this is because she already had two and both of their names started with C.
So that’s what influenced her and her husband to name him Creigh.
Mrs. Hissong is grateful to have her husband and pastor by her side to help her with this baby.
“They have been the greatest day-to-day help,” Mrs. Hissong said.
English teacher Mrs. Lennon has also just recently had her baby on Oct. 17. Mrs. Lennon and her husband Adam named their son Archer Lennon.
This is because they wanted a fun nickname for their son, which is Archie.
Mrs. Lennon said she couldn’t have felt better when she found out she was pregnant. She and her husband immediately started thinking of names.
Mrs. Lennon’s home life hasn’t changed much, she said.
“Other than waking up a lot more with the new baby,” Mrs. Lennon said.
She had to prepare her older son Henry for his new brother Archie coming soon. They were always talking to Henry about it and preparing him for the big change, she said.
Now Henry enjoys having his little brother Archie in the home; he tries to include Archie in his daily routine, she said.
“As for my teaching life, I will know when I get back, especially after becoming a parent. It made me a lot more understanding as a teacher and I feel like having a work-life balance is important for families, ” Mrs. Lennon said.
Mrs. Lennon wasn’t nervous about missing so much school. The reason for this is because she had retired English teacher Mr. Kip Omstead teaching her class while she was on leave.
Although she knew her class was in good hands, after being at home with Archie for a few weeks Mrs. Lennon decided to resign from being an English teacher and decided to become a stay-at-home mom.
The good thing about Mr. Omstead as her long-term sub was that she didn’t have to write out any daily plans, she said. The only thing she had to plan for Mr. Omstead was what books they read and what the students have accomplished this year.
Mrs. Lennon’s family has been supportive the whole way through, she said. Her husband was lucky enough to be able to be on paternity leave from his job, and her mom is retired so they are able to help out a lot with her two-year-old son, chores, and of course breaks if she needs them.
Surprisingly these three aren’t the only teachers with new babies.
Phys ed teacher Devin Wilburn has also just recently had his baby on Oct. 14. Mr. Wilburn and his wife decided on naming their new daughter Sienna Jade Wilburn. Sienna isn’t their first child as they have an older daughter, Tatum.
“My wife really liked that name (Sienna) with our first one, but I really loved the name Tatum, and so she kind of let me have that one with our first, and so I just kind of let her have this one,” Wilburn said.
Although Wilburn has recently had his child he wasn’t able to go on leave for as long. Wilburn only got to be on leave for a week with his daughter Sienna.
Mr. Wilburn was surprised when he found out that his wife was pregnant, he said.
“This one was not really planned. … We had talked about the possibility of maybe doing it,” Mr. Wilburn said, “but we were kind of thinking of waiting a couple more years.”
Wilburn’s wife waited to tell him she was pregnant until Valentine’s Day as a little surprise, he said.
Since this is Wilburn and his wife’s second baby girl they were already prepared with the stuff they needed from their last baby.
Recently Miss Fuller, art teacher, has also just had her baby boy Braxtyn on Oct. 22. She wasn’t the one who decided on naming him Braxtyn; it was her other son, Axel, who picked the name out for her.
Miss Fuller loves her new baby, especially with how well her other son is bonding with Braxtyn.
“So far the baby has made my family more complete,” she said. “My son now has the sibling he always wanted.”
Near the end of her pregnancy she said her teaching life was getting very hard with all of the movements of the baby. Everyday things were getting physically too hard for her to do, she said.
Miss Fuller made sure to prepare for this baby by putting together a small nursery for Braxtyn, but the mental preparation was the hardest as that all happened after he was born.
Knowing she was going to miss a lot of school while being on maternity leave, Miss Fuller received an email shortly after letting the staff know she was pregnant. This email came from Mrs. Juli Dorton, the retired art teacher from Delta Middle School. She offered to be the maternity sub for Miss Fuller.
All of Miss Fuller’s stress was relieved after that.
Now that she had the long term sub part handled, she had to prepare the sub to take over for her.
Miss Fuller put together binders of the seating charts, project ideas, rubrics and so on, she said. Other than that she didn’t need to prepare her that much as she is an expert in the content area, she said.
Miss Fuller has had much help from teachers all around the school including Mrs. Zacek, Mrs. Kress, Mrs. Hummel, Mr. Oliver and Mr. Thompson. She has also had help from, of course, her family and her best friend, Whitney.
Miss Fuller has already prepared a plan for Braxtyn to be taken care of when she comes back to school.
“My parents will be watching him Monday, Wednesday, and Friday every week,” she said. “On Tuesdays and Thursdays he will be going to a local babysitter.”
And coming with the final baby will be Mr. and Mrs. Lodl.
Mrs. Lodl originally was due in early January with her new baby boy, but that date now has been moved up to the last week of December. Mr. and Mrs. Lodl have had to prepare their house and get a room set up for their first baby.
They decided on a room and got rid of all the junk that was in that room. The room they decided on was their dog’s room, so they had to move their dog into a kennel.
Mrs. Lodl was surprised to hear that she was pregnant. The reason she was very surprised is because of a disorder she has that makes it difficult for her to get pregnant.
“I have PCOS, which is Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome,” Mrs. Lodl said. “Basically my eggs don’t release normally to be fertilized.”
When Mrs. Lodl found out she was pregnant, she had to prepare for a sub to take over for her, but she didn’t know who was going to be the sub.
But then a retired staffer, Mrs. Mary Opel, offered to be her long term sub. Mrs. Opel is a good friend of Mrs. Nancy Kunk, the other Agriculture teacher.
Mrs. Lodl was pleased to hear that she found a long term sub so she wrote out a sub plan and didn’t have to plan labs for her as she can go to Mrs. Kunk’s room and do the labs with her class, she said.
Mrs. Lodl is blessed to have her husband, English teacher Mr. Lodl, by her side every day. She said he takes care of her, does the chores around the house that she can’t do anymore, and just really listens to her and does everything she asks.
“I’m toward the end now and I’m kind of just like, ‘Okay, I really want you to just be here kid,’” Mrs. Lodl said.
