I am a graduate student, my wife is a post-doc, and we are expecting our first child in the next few weeks. I actually just found out that my school recently (this summer) made a policy allowing graduate students to take up to 60 days of paid leave, so I am fortunate here at BU. I didn't realize how bad the US policies are until we started talking with our (mostly foreign) coworkers who were all surprised that my wife is still at work even though she is expecting a baby in a few weeks. We both work in supportive labs that would probably give us the time off that we need regardless of the school policy, but it is scary to think what it would be like even working in another lab at the same school some times. We really need to do more to support the women working in the US especially when it comes to family friendly leave.