FMLA Planning

You can always take Family Leave, it's just a matter of whether it will be paid time off, or just time off.
However............not a good idea to get pregnant 3 months into a new job! They have to hold A JOB for you. Not necessarily the one you had. You need to be there long enough and be well trained and valuable enough that it is worth it to them to accomodate you.

Don't assume that your potential pregnancy will last the full 9 months. You never know what will happen, you could end up with a preemie that needs hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical costs before your 12 months is up. You could end up on bedrest for a portion of your pregnancy (I did). There's a host of things that could happen before you reach your year benchmark. I'd just wait, I know it's not what you want to hear but I think it's the responsible thing to do.

As long as you've "worked" 1250 hours. 1249 would disqualify you. What if you get sick early on in your pregnancy, you wont be able to work and thus would negate your ability to qualify for the fmla.

CONGRATULATIONS ON THE NEW JOB!!

Welcome to mamapedia!!

Why did you take this job if you KNOW you wanted to start a family this year? That doesn't make sense to me.

I am a recruiter - not in HR - but to the best of my knowledge - you need to be at the job for 12 months OR 1250 hours. Talk to the benefits administrator. As a recruiter I would be TOTALLY disappointed if you did this. It's like you came on board just for benefits and to me? that's wrong and you just wasted my efforts to provide my company with a long-term stable employee.

I would start planning financially NOW - live off one income. If you can't do that? You most likely can't afford a child. They are expensive. If you want 12 weeks off work - you need to save for it. NOW.

Think long and hard about why you took the job and what you want out of it. If it's just benefits? Sad. Start financially planning to live off one income as most likely? you will not want to go back to work.

good luck

Congrats on the new job :)
Yes, it will cover you if you need it after the baby is born. However, like others have said, if you were to be put on bed rest during your pregnancy, you will not qualify. Also keep in mind that FMLA only guarantees that you will have a job to come back to, not that you will get paid while you are away. At my former place of employment, maternity leave was considered short term disability, which the company paid for as long as your doctor stated you needed to be off work. So check with your HR department.
Also, someone stated below that you could lose your job if you got pregnant right away, that's illegal. Even in the state of Ohio where you can be fired for any reason, you still can't discriminate, and pregnancy is legally considered a temporary disability. I had a friend who almost got fired for calling off a lot while she was pregnant. She was horribly ill through her second trimester. She contacted an attorney who contacted the head of HR and reminded them of the law. They backed off REAL quick.

HR might specify the pregnancy has to start after your 1 year requirement has been met.
The only way to know for sure is to ask them.

Sounds pretty clear that you could, right?

UNLESS, of course, "Murphy happens"--5 months of bed rest ordered, other health complications, loss of your husband's job...on and on.

Check your specific employee manual or HR policy site.
FMLA is UNPAID leave (unless your state offers Paid Family Leave, which is approx 50-60% salary for UP TO 12 weeks).
I had to use my Short Term Disability (6 weeks), followed by ALL accrued vaca time, then a period of FMLA with the entire length of leave not to exceed 12 weeks (so it was not 12 weeks of FMLA for me, more like 3-4 FMLA).
My advice? Start saving now for that income gap.
And be aware that once your baby is born, you may not be interested at all in returning to work--a curve ball thrown to many women after becoming a mother! Another reason to save and living on O. salary--just in case. No O. likes that helpless feeling of having NO choice but having to return to work if they don't want to.

Could you get pregnant within 3 - 4 months? Yes.
Should you PLAN on getting pregnant within 3 - 4 months?, I wouldn't.

Some companies have you wait 3 months for health insurance to kick in. If you get pregnant before it kicks in it is considered preexisting and the insurance won't cover a dime.

I was with my company for 4 years, took a new position in a new group within the company, and within 2 months was pregnant. So if you look at it from just the 'new group' perspective, I was only there 2 months before I my surprise pregnancy. Sort of the same senario.

FMLA is not magic windfall. All FMLA does is allow you without question to use up to 12 weeks of leave within a 12 month period per incident- sick, annual, unpaid- and still have a job to return to.

It is possible that HR will say that FMLA can be used, but it you haven't accumulated enough sick leave, or annual leave, then you'll still be taking unpaid leave. The one year mark just means that you are guarenteed coverage. If you are put on bed rest prior to that they could deny you the FMLA protection.

If you would have been there 12 months and worked 1250 hours when you start your leave, yes, you would qualify for FMLA.

Why did you take the job? Why would you plan to use the benefit so quickly? Did you take the job simply for this FMLA benefit?

Benefits are for employees to use as needed to help them continue to be a good employee.

As an employer, if I found out a new hire was already planning how to use me to get a good benefit that I provide, I would be escorting them out the door because they obviously signed on with me to use me. That would mean the employee lost all trustworthiness in my book...

Maybe I am misunderstanding something here but you are playing with fire if you are planning something this early on. You don't know if you would have an easy pregnancy, have something else happen and then not be eligible for the benefit or employment.

ETA: Momof3lalilu.... I NEVER stated that I would fire someone for getting pregnant. Hello..... I am a mom as well. READ what I said before YOU jump to conclusions. As an employer, if you use me for your benefit and are not a good employee, I will show you the door and I will not have a lawsuit because I will do it legally. If someone is planning to start a family, they need to save money and live on 1 income because most likely, that mom will not come back to the workforce for some time.

Yes you could qualify for FMLA because if you have been working 3 months, then get pregnant you are pregnant for 9 months so that would give you the full year. You just need to make sure you work all the way up to your delivery date.
I disagree with some of the other posts about you should not take the job b/c you know you want to get pregnant soon. Pregnancy is part of life! What are you supposed to do, not work for 9 months? What if you took the job and then got cancer or had an accident or something? things happen. I would not WANT to work for any employer who was going to be an a-hole about something like this. I assume your intentions toward the job are good and that you will return from leave and be a good employee.

That said, FMLA is not much of a "benefit". You dont actually receive anything except unpaid time off with a guarantee that you have a job to come back to. What you need is short term disability. You would have to check with HR to find out what kind of benefit waiting periods and pre-existing condition exclusions apply to your benefits to know if you would be eligible.

I would carefully think this through. You've gotten some good answers already about the technical aspects of FMLA, however I'd like to emphasize that you should carefully consider this from a career management point of view. You don't say what type of work you do, or how committed you are to your job/career. If you work a job that, to you, is "just a job", then this may not matter to you so much.

But if you have a job that you would want to continue with and a build your career from, then you might want to give this more thought. To the recuiter's point (who responded below), a company makes a big investment when they hire someone (cost of hiring, training, etc.). They have a business need to have your position filled with the most capable person possible, and chances are it also costs them (ie; opportunity costs, temp hiring, stressing their staff who has to fill in) to not have someone working in the position -- especially now when most companies are so lean.

Obviously, life has a way of throwing 'curveballs' sometimes (and no employer can/should EVER tell you when to begin your family), but if you go into your new job with the expectation that you'll be taking a substantial amount of leave within a year and racking up all kinds of medical/disability benefits, you could jeopardize your professional reputation to a certain extent. Granted, as someone said, if you got sick, it would be a non-issue. But if word got out about your intentions (or people surmised it on their own), you might be seen as not very reliable and just using the company (remember, you might want your most recent employer as a reference if you look for work again someday).

If your career matters to you, I would wait at least a year before trying and put every ounce of effort into doing such a good job that you'll be sorely missed during your leave - regardless of whether you intend to come back. If it doesn't, (or if there are other siginificant factors as to why you must start a family immediately) then these points are moot and I wish you all the best.

It should. If you have an HR dept you can ask questions/get benefit information from them. Are you going to get insurance from this company as well? You may need to check with them to see if they have any restrictions as well.

TF Plano. LOL REALLY? And you'd be facing a lawsuit too. It's NONE of your business' business. How are you going to prove that exactly? Nice jump to conclusions. Maybe she found her dream job and plans to be there and a great employee for YEARS. The year long requirement is already the CO "protecting" itself to a point.

Yes, you would qualify IF you meet the requirements.

Personally, I would wait a minimum of 6 months, if not a full year. There are so many IF's involved. What IF your hours gets reduced? What IF this job doesn't work out? What IF you get laid off? What IF you have complications with the pregnancy? What IF the baby is born premature?