I got a text from HR today saying I will need to fill out FMLA paperwork for the basically 2 weeks I will have missed between calling off and doctors appointments. She also said it would count as part of my 12 weeks of maternity leave.
Soooo. Yeah. I'm hoping the ultrasound and doctor visits this week will explain why I'm so miserable and in so much pain. Hopefully we can make a game plan for it.
Additionally, I am not sure if I will be going back to the same job when I'm finished with maternity leave. I'm going to do my best to feel good enough to work through the rest of pregnancy there. But fall might be a good time to look for a more mom friendly business to be a part of.
Unfortunately I think it is legal for an employer to request that the time used for medical time off be counted against FMLA even if the leave is paid vacation, if the employer believes employee has serious medical condition preventing work. It's not very employee friendly, agreed. But the dr. Would have to refute it and say employee *was* fit for work. FMLA is a mess and we're so screwed here in the states.
My wk is really blah. All my medical billing drama and my apathy towards the u/s just has feeling I never should have become a parent in the first place. But I have to tell work this week as I'll be 20 weeks by next Sunday and I've dragged this out long enough .
@mrszoobear My goodness, I'm sorry, I hope you can use some vacation days or other to not eat into FMLA. It is also quite galling that they are bringing up doctors appointments. I always just pop off, do my appointment, and come back to work. I have a pretty flexible work arrangement though and nobody is tracking where I am as long as I get my work done. I can't imagine having to track all that and get permission for each one. What is your relationship with your boss like? Can he or she pull any sway with HR? I would imagine that if your boss is satisfied despite the situation, HR would back off. Anyway, what I wanted to say was that if you are starting to look for other companies check out Fairygodboss. It is a website that has reviews of companies by how parent friendly they are. Might be a good resource for a lot of folks!
Note that many employers require FMLA to run concurrently with paid leave, that's legal as well. You'd have to check with your employer and most likely this info is in the employee handbook. (please don't read me as defending fmla. Just clarifying info).
I am having a bad case of the Monday's. Last full week of summer break and its got me all bummed and not ready for school to start back, but maybe I need school to start back to get me motivated a little better!
@anniemarie887 I'm no expert on it, at my last job the HR manager didn't understand FMLA at all so I basically had to enforce it/ oversee compliance. Omg the more you learn about it the more you realize what a joke it is.
@bookworm492 HR stuff is tough, i'm fortunate that i have 3 friends who work for massive companies in HR and i tend to defer to them for consulting on issues.
Thanks everyone. I used up all my vacation time when I was sick or had doctors appointments during my first tri. The way they calculate it is you "earn" vacation hours based on the years you've been there by the hours you put in and then it is applied to your records the next month. Basically the second I earn my 6.72 hours a month it is gone with my next couple of doctors apts or one really sick day 🤷♀️
HR is also the office manager, who is my direct boss. The only person higher then her is the general manager for our plant. Which is one of hundreds in a large Corp that doesn't care about individual employees because they have thousands. They could really use me right now. But they are nice enough to care about how I'm doing. Just not nice enough to not punish me for being sick at an inconvenient time.
But it is what it is. I'm going to ask the doctor to fill out the FMLA paperwork so they dont just fire me. Then I'm going to ask him to write up some job restrictions about how long I can work per day and per week so they don't try to make me work extra hard to "make up" for not being there. A 40 work week can easily turn into a 50-60 hour work week if we are super busy or someone is on vacation.
@mrszoobear the FMLA stuff is a joke, and so complicated. I'm sorry they are doing this to you. It's not employee friendly but probably completely legal by the letter of the law.
I'm sitting at my desk taking a mental break by browsing the bump. I just left a client living area after being threatened by one of my clients (I believe he was going to rip my throat out and stomp on it). Clients are starting to ask if I'm pregnant because the bump is super visible now (I'm very short waisted, there isn't much space there for a baby). So I'm feeling pretty vulnerable. Ugh
I have a few maternity leave questions, and wondered if anyone here knows. I know some of it may vary by workplace, but FMLA rules should be universal, right? 1. If we are using PTO, do we have to use our own time for days that the rest of the employees are off? For instance, most of us will be in leave during the holidays, and since I'm a teacher, we get 2 weeks. I shouldn't have to use up PTO for those two weeks, right? Even if they fall right within my planned leave? 2. With FMLA, what happens if I take all 12 weeks for leave, and a few months after returning to work, my baby gets sick and I need to take a few more days off. Could they fire me for going beyond 12 weeks of absence? Should we save a bit of time for an instance like this instead of using all 12 weeks up at once?
I am currently in a state of limbo with my doctor and employer. I went into my appointment today to talk about my constant vomiting and pain. But we didn't get very far into the apt before he made me go down to Labor and Delivery which was anxiety inducing.
My blood pressure was sky high and I had protein in my urine. They normally don't diagnose women with preeclampsia until 20 weeks or after (I'm only 19 wks). But the numbers were high enough to worry him. He told me he would fill out my FMLA paperwork but would worry about that after he made sure I didn't have preeclampsia because then I would be written off for the rest of my pregnancy.
The Labor and Delivery people think I had undiagnosed high blood pressure before getting pregnant and diagnosed me with Hypertension not preeclampsia. Thank goodness because that would be terrifying this early in the pregnancy.
But by the time I was discharged from L&D my doctor was gone for the day. He has me scheduled to see him in a week. So at least I can get him to fill my FMLA paperwork then. But I'm in limbo now! We still don't know what is causing all my bad symptoms and I'm worried what not keeping food down will do for the baby. I've never been so happy in my life to be fat! At least I have a lot of nutrients stored up for her to use 😂 Doctor says her weight and heartbeat and everything still looks great.
Work is off the table for another week which means the bills are piling up. Hopefully I will eventually get the okay to go back to work at least part time or the diagnosis is something disability will cover. 🤞
@blueskychicago12 I advise you to pull your employee handbook for #1. This is not an FMLA question, it's a PTO question.
#2, most likely yes but again look and see in your handbook what the calendar your employer uses to calculate the 12 month term. It's probably a rolling 12 month period.
@blueskychicago12 some of those are employer specific. My employer does not use leave to cover paid holidays. Some might though. FMLA really just protects your job. How you get paid is separate. For the second question, theoretically yes they no longer have to protect your job if you exhausted FMLA. I’m planning to role the dice and take my chances.
I actually took 14 weeks off total on my last maternity leave. Two weeks prior To birth and twelve weeks after. I’ve taken off sick since then too (and taken regular vacation time too...sick leave and vacation are separate for us). But I also had paid leave time to cover it all. So I wasn’t exhausting my paid leave even though my FMLA coverage was exhausted. I also knew that we were short 10 social workers facility wide (we only have 35). Why would they fire me when they are so short? That just leaves another position to fill. So I was pretty confident I was fine. I’m not sure in another setting I would be that confident. And I was playing a little loosey goosey and taking a risk.
@mrszoobear a mentally ill client lol. I work in forensic mental health...lots of things happen that don’t in the “real world”. Usually doesn’t phase me. Sometimes it does.
@Stac928 - Oohhhh. That makes a lot of sense. Still sorry you have to deal with that but I'm sure your used to dealing with a lot. I think its great you work in that kind of field. It takes someone with strong character and compassion to do that kind of work ❤
@Stac928@bookworm492 thanks! Neither of those issues is covered in my employee handbook. I kind of hoped there were larger rules about that stuff. If it's a gray area, my enployer will probably just do whatever saves them the most money😐
@blueskychicago12 I found this off of the SHRM (Society for Human Resources) a while back because I had the same question and my HR oddly wasn't 100% sure.
Determining whether company holidays count towards
an employee's FMLA entitlement depends on whether the employee takes leave for
an entire week or on a lesser intermittent or reduced schedule basis:
When
a holiday occurs within a week in which an employee takes a full week of
FMLA leave, the entire week is counted as FMLA leave.
If,
however, an employee is taking FMLA leave in increments less than one
week, the holiday is not counted as FMLA leave—unless the employee was
scheduled and expected to work on the holiday and used FMLA leave for that
day.
Company
shutdowns of one or more weeks where employees are not expected to report
to work, such as for the Christmas/New Year holiday, a summer vacation, or
a plant closing for retooling or repairs, do not count against an
employee's FMLA leave entitlement.
School closings count as a "shutdown"... I'm pretty geeked about this because it means I get an extra 7 days off for our campus closing at Christmas.
@blueskychicago12@ashorkey omg I'm cringing at hr staff who don't know this or at the very least don't know how to research and get a policy in place.... I'm sorry
@bookworm492 Our HR team is kind of a hot mess, but the new Director over there is trying to improve it. The HR Manager is better than our last, she's only been with the college for maybe 9 months? And she didn't come from a place with "shutdowns" in the past so she was trying to refer me over to the Benefits Manager - who I don't have the best relationship with (long story short I'm in her old position, but I have a higher seniority in it than she did so she holds it against me) so I decided to do my own research on the topic and forward it to the HR Manager. Luckily my background is in HR so I know where and how to look for certain things. The position I'm currently in is technically still HR, but I work with students rather than staff so HR doesn't consider me to be part of their team, and I don't sit with them - which I'm fine with.
mrszoobear
member
Re: Working Moms - Week of 7/22
Soooo. Yeah. I'm hoping the ultrasound and doctor visits this week will explain why I'm so miserable and in so much pain. Hopefully we can make a game plan for it.
Additionally, I am not sure if I will be going back to the same job when I'm finished with maternity leave. I'm going to do my best to feel good enough to work through the rest of pregnancy there. But fall might be a good time to look for a more mom friendly business to be a part of.
Seems excessive to me for them to say you need to apply for FMLA.
DS - 7.5
DD #1 - 6
~ mmc 7.11.2018 @ 9w ~
DD#2 - born 12.24.19
today: physically i am here, mentally i am on a tropical island. in sales slow days are not what you want... but today i am not complaining.
My wk is really blah. All my medical billing drama and my apathy towards the u/s just has feeling I never should have become a parent in the first place. But I have to tell work this week as I'll be 20 weeks by next Sunday and I've dragged this out long enough .
https://www.ballardspahr.com/alertspublications/legalalerts/2019-04-01-fmla-can-and-should-run-concurrently-with-paid-leave
HR is also the office manager, who is my direct boss. The only person higher then her is the general manager for our plant. Which is one of hundreds in a large Corp that doesn't care about individual employees because they have thousands. They could really use me right now. But they are nice enough to care about how I'm doing. Just not nice enough to not punish me for being sick at an inconvenient time.
But it is what it is. I'm going to ask the doctor to fill out the FMLA paperwork so they dont just fire me. Then I'm going to ask him to write up some job restrictions about how long I can work per day and per week so they don't try to make me work extra hard to "make up" for not being there. A 40 work week can easily turn into a 50-60 hour work week if we are super busy or someone is on vacation.
@mrszoobear the FMLA stuff is a joke, and so complicated. I'm sorry they are doing this to you. It's not employee friendly but probably completely legal by the letter of the law.
I'm sitting at my desk taking a mental break by browsing the bump. I just left a client living area after being threatened by one of my clients (I believe he was going to rip my throat out and stomp on it). Clients are starting to ask if I'm pregnant because the bump is super visible now (I'm very short waisted, there isn't much space there for a baby). So I'm feeling pretty vulnerable. Ugh
Married 1/28/17
TW:
BFP #2 10/10/17, MC 11/4/17
BFP #3 12/17/17 Birth 8/13/18
BFP #4 4/21/19 Birth 12/5/2019
1. If we are using PTO, do we have to use our own time for days that the rest of the employees are off? For instance, most of us will be in leave during the holidays, and since I'm a teacher, we get 2 weeks. I shouldn't have to use up PTO for those two weeks, right? Even if they fall right within my planned leave?
2. With FMLA, what happens if I take all 12 weeks for leave, and a few months after returning to work, my baby gets sick and I need to take a few more days off. Could they fire me for going beyond 12 weeks of absence? Should we save a bit of time for an instance like this instead of using all 12 weeks up at once?
Also, I'm sorry about your client acting crazy! That's nuts, who threatens a clearly pregnant lady? SMH. Some people.
My blood pressure was sky high and I had protein in my urine. They normally don't diagnose women with preeclampsia until 20 weeks or after (I'm only 19 wks). But the numbers were high enough to worry him. He told me he would fill out my FMLA paperwork but would worry about that after he made sure I didn't have preeclampsia because then I would be written off for the rest of my pregnancy.
The Labor and Delivery people think I had undiagnosed high blood pressure before getting pregnant and diagnosed me with Hypertension not preeclampsia. Thank goodness because that would be terrifying this early in the pregnancy.
But by the time I was discharged from L&D my doctor was gone for the day. He has me scheduled to see him in a week. So at least I can get him to fill my FMLA paperwork then. But I'm in limbo now! We still don't know what is causing all my bad symptoms and I'm worried what not keeping food down will do for the baby. I've never been so happy in my life to be fat! At least I have a lot of nutrients stored up for her to use 😂 Doctor says her weight and heartbeat and everything still looks great.
Work is off the table for another week which means the bills are piling up. Hopefully I will eventually get the okay to go back to work at least part time or the diagnosis is something disability will cover. 🤞
Sorry for the mega rant! I tend to do that here 😳
#2, most likely yes but again look and see in your handbook what the calendar your employer uses to calculate the 12 month term. It's probably a rolling 12 month period.
I actually took 14 weeks off total on my last maternity leave. Two weeks prior To birth and twelve weeks after. I’ve taken off sick since then too (and taken regular vacation time too...sick leave and vacation are separate for us). But I also had paid leave time to cover it all. So I wasn’t exhausting my paid leave even though my FMLA coverage was exhausted. I also knew that we were short 10 social workers facility wide (we only have 35). Why would they fire me when they are so short? That just leaves another position to fill. So I was pretty confident I was fine. I’m not sure in another setting I would be that confident. And I was playing a little loosey goosey and taking a risk.
Married 1/28/17
TW:
BFP #2 10/10/17, MC 11/4/17
BFP #3 12/17/17 Birth 8/13/18
BFP #4 4/21/19 Birth 12/5/2019
Married 1/28/17
TW:
BFP #2 10/10/17, MC 11/4/17
BFP #3 12/17/17 Birth 8/13/18
BFP #4 4/21/19 Birth 12/5/2019
Determining whether company holidays count towards an employee's FMLA entitlement depends on whether the employee takes leave for an entire week or on a lesser intermittent or reduced schedule basis:
- When
a holiday occurs within a week in which an employee takes a full week of
FMLA leave, the entire week is counted as FMLA leave.
- If,
however, an employee is taking FMLA leave in increments less than one
week, the holiday is not counted as FMLA leave—unless the employee was
scheduled and expected to work on the holiday and used FMLA leave for that
day.
- Company
shutdowns of one or more weeks where employees are not expected to report
to work, such as for the Christmas/New Year holiday, a summer vacation, or
a plant closing for retooling or repairs, do not count against an
employee's FMLA leave entitlement.
School closings count as a "shutdown"... I'm pretty geeked about this because it means I get an extra 7 days off for our campus closing at Christmas.https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/hr-topics/benefits/pages/three-points-about-fmla-during-the-holidays.aspx
DS - 7.5
DD #1 - 6
~ mmc 7.11.2018 @ 9w ~
DD#2 - born 12.24.19