Not me personally. But my sister put in her for her M/Leave & ended up going earlier than she planned. She had terrible back pains & her dr gave her a sick certificate. So she used up all her sick leave before her actual M/Leave started. She left at I think 30 weeks.
i had nasty morning sickness so barely worked for my whole pregnancy. i was put on short periods of leave without pay and kept trying to return (who'd have thought i'd get it ALL pg - what happened to first tri??). eventually we decided i'd go on LWOP until mat leave kicked in six weeks before EDD. it really will depend on your individual employee agreement/contract though. ours allows for this - it actually allows you to take the first six weeks of mat leave at any time before EDD and the other six after baby arrives so you can split it up if needed.
i hated not working for so long - but i live a fair distance from work and no matter what time of day i tried to go to work, the trip made me seriously ill. if you're thinking of finishing up early, make sure you will still be eligible for your mat leave (esp if it's paid) as some will allow you to have your time off work, but if you've finished early and have taken LWOP you won't be eligible for payments as they "pay" you the same rate as you were on when you went on mat leave (hope that makes sense - i'm struggling to find the words!)
I put my mat leave in when I was about 19 weeks and went into labour the following
Check with your HR dept, you may find you have a time restriction on when you can actually start Maternity Leave, that said, you could also explore the possibility of cutting down your hours and offsetting them with any accrued annual leave or sick leave depending on your company.
Another thing to look into is to whether or not your company has an agreement on "Special Maternity Leave" usually its applicable from 28 weeks BUT you must either be ill (pregnancy related) or given birth to a live baby. This also comes into the normal 12 month leave.
Again check with your HR dept, you may even want to get a copy of your EBA just so you know what your entitled to take and how you access it.
I put in to take mat leave from 34weeks, but ended up leaving at 32weeks as I went into labour early. I took 2 weeks of sick leave which I had access to.
I planned to go at 36 weeks but went at 34 because I was wiped out but next time I would go way way earlier. Maybe 30 weeks, my employer is quite flexible about when you start your twelve months leave. I found the last four weeks I was uncomfortable and not reallly working at my best. When my little boy was 10 months I was pretty keen to go back so I really could have gone on leave a fair bit earlier.
Talk to your HR and remember you can ask them to keep your enquiry confidential.
I did. I had to use some of my annual leave at my workplace because I had a little scare around 24wks
When I had the scare, the midwife asked what I did for work and when I'd planned on leaving and after I told her, she said that I REALLY should be off sooner than that - so I cashed in some annual leave - two weeks before I'd planned on leaving
i ended up leaving earlier from one of my jobs due to facing bullying...but i didnt have to go back, but had the mat leave paid out as well as the sick...
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