I've been on these forums for a while and only just found this thread. So inspirational and awesome to read these stories- thanks!
I don't have a big FU story, but a mini one. At my old company, I legitimately think I was the first male employee to take full advantage (3 months) of FMLA paternity leave (US unpaid family leave allowance) when my first child was born. My direct boss was supportive, but my department head, VP, HR reps, and others couldn't seem to understand why a male would want to take that time off. I kept getting incredulous looks and questions like "you know the leave is unpaid, right"? "Are you and your family going to be ok during this time"? It was amazing.
The best part about the whole thing was that the company's vacation accrual "cap" policy was so high that I had been able to save up ahead of time and got ~50% of the paternity leave paid for with vacation time. Many people also seemed dumbfounded that either A) I had the discipline/preparation to have that much vacation built up {asked by the few people I knew who always blew through their vacation time early each year}, or B) That I would actually burn through that much vacation time in one, solid chunk {asked by the majority of people that were actively losing vacation time because they were at the cap}... What else is vacation time for?