Determining when you plan on taking maternity leave can be an overwhelming process since you don’t know the exact date of your baby’s arrival. However, it is very important that you find out what your rights and benefits are early in your pregnancy. The best place to find out your maternity rights are is to refer to your companies employee handbook, to determine if they have a policy for maternity leave. If there isn’t a policy in the employee handbook it is important that you talk to human resources as soon as possible. Don’t wait to long to talk to them because there is paperwork that often requires your doctors signature and it can take some time to gather the documents. Once you have the proper documents filled out, you need to return them to the human resources department as soon as possible so that they can process the documents.
Disclosure: This post is for informational purposes only. If you have any questions, please contact your company’s human resources department. The opinions reflected in this post are my own and based upon my own experience with maternity leave.