Hi karina,

Firstly, what a prat about work! I'm lucky that mine is so easy about it. My work is actually encouraging me to take 12 months off but I'm only asking for 5 months (but then I only work 2 days a week at the moment!). The only thing my work is annoyed about is that someone just quit so they are recruiting for that and then I'm leaving on mat leave at the end of Jan, another girl is leaving at end of Feb/early March, and another girl at end of Feb! So they have 4 positions to recruit in about 5 months!
My understanding about maternity leave is that although they don't have to give you PAID maternity leave, they HAVE to give you 12 months off after which time they have to give you part time work if you ask for it. But I could be wrong. Do you have an HR department you can talk to? Or are you in a union? Also, legally you don't have to tell them ANYTHING about your plans until about 10 weeks before you plan to leave.

HTH. Good luck with it.

MG