FMLA

Knottie25816533

anyone else signing up? My benefits center didn't really explain it very well and I'm still so confused! Starting to have MS and will use it for that plus doctors visits. Need some more explanation tho once I'm ready to tell work. I don't have more than a few PTO days and sick days built up.  Kind of concerned what this all will mean once baby is here. Ugh!

LoveIsOwlYouNeed

All FMLA means is that your employer, if they are of a certain size, has to hold your job for you for 12 weeks to attend to a birth, adoption or serious illness.  The policy for being paid or not, how and how much depends specifically on your company's policy. In most cases, you have to have short term disability to cover part of your salary (and that's usually only 2/3 of it) and/or use PTO. Some companies have better policies in place than others to cover your time off. My old company had a better policy than my new one, for example.

Some states (like California) have requirements about paying you, but that really depends on where you live.

meggyme

My best advice is to find an OB who has hours that work with your schedule. I switched early on from an office that closed at 4 to one that had appointments as late as 5:30 and I think I've missed 8 hours of work this entire pregnancy and only because I had 2 glucose tests and 2 anatomy scans.

That doesn't really help with the morning sickness, but will at least cut back on the hours you take off for appointments, which get to be quite a lot toward the end when you'll really want to save it for maternity leave.

rissa06

Federal FMLA is covered employers to provide employees job-protected and unpaid leave for qualified medical and family reasons.   It is only available to those Who has been working for the same
employer for 12 months, have worked over 1250 hours for the yr and for companies more then 50 employees within a 75 mile radius.  

Depending ng on how your HR department works and companies policies u might be able to see if you can use your lunch time or work out with your manager that you either use your lunch time or come in later on the days that u have a doctor's appointment and work later those days.  

With regards to using your state program, this depends on what state u live in and a lot of times it can run concurrently with federal FMLA.   Hth

penelope4612

Keep in mind that if you use your FMLA for MS and doctors appointments, then that will eat into the amount that you can use after the baby comes.  I would recommend speaking with the benefits people again, or talking to HR, or talking to your boss, to get a better understanding of policies at your job.