Source
r/pregnant•
Comprehensive-Fan759

FMLA Questions

Need Advice

Hi! I’m a FTM due the first week of December. I found out today that I will be induced at the end of this month at 39 weeks. I filed my maternity leave and parental bonding time months ago with a company called AbsentOne through Sedgwick. I have had an okay experience with them however I feel like they may not be telling me the whole truth of my time off. I also filed for intermittent absence to help cover my doctors appointments as well. I live 45 minutes from their main office and over an hour from their other two offices. So naturally I have scheduled all of my appts on my one day off a week to avoid needing to use my time. Well of course not every appointment has been able to been scheduled on this one particular day off and due to other things I have exhausted all my PTO at this point literally covering appointments (appts not specifically for baby as well.) My maternity and parental bonding leave are in pending status until I give birth and they only approved me 2 hours once a week for any appointments. Of course today when I scheduled my appointment for next week across all of my doctors offices at all 3 locations they are fully booked on my one day off and they informed me that I will need to allow at least an hour and half for next weeks appointment. So that would put me over my 2 hours with my drive time. They also told me that I would not be allowed to start my maternity leave any earlier than when I give birth because they do not cover “prenatal” time off. Just maternity and parental bonding. Is that true? I thought maternity was FMLA and could be taken as early as 30 weeks. They also said someone would have to get back with me to see if I could be allowed more than 2 hours for next week. I just feel extremely confused and now worried I could face repercussions at my job if I need to miss work next week because if I miss half the day it’s considered a full day. Any advice because now I’m stressing over it because I don’t want to potentially lose any benefits or risk my job. Also my HR department will not help, they have referred me back to Sedgwick since they handle 100% of STD, LTD, FMLA. Thanks in advance.

Posted Nov 6, 2023, 8:18 PM UTC

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NOTsanderson•

FMLA covers birth of a child or medical condition- some people do take it early, but a doctor would need to certify that it is needed. Taking FMLA early also cuts into your FMLA time after birth. Many do not start maternity leave until birth for this reason. You get up to 12 weeks of unpaid time off with FMLA and can use it within 1 year.

I think the intermittent leave for appointments would depend on your company policy. If they will only cover a certain day, I’d be nervous about taking any other time off, especially if you’re in an At Will state.

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