I’m so stressed and can’t stop crying, my job is making the leave process so god damn hard. And I work for a huge corporate company who should be used to women going on leave for pregnancy.

My job offers 10 weeks recovery and 8 weeks parental leave, two of which can be taken two weeks before delivery. I’m being induced at 37 weeks so I tried to make it to 35 weeks when I could take my two weeks of parental leave and then take my 16 weeks after delivery. At 33 weeks I got into a car accident and as of that day in the hospital, hadn’t had any cervical changes but began having constant contractions that would get worse at work (I take inbound customer complaints and whereas I emotionally don’t care about being yelled at all day everyday, my body was reacting horribly). I worked through the pain for 4 days before calling my doctor. The nurse let me know that, since as of that point there were no cervical changes (meaning at the time they discharged me the week before) there was technically no medical need so they couldn’t fill out my short term disability paperwork yet but they would fill out my FMLA paperwork to cover that additional week before my parental leave kicked in. So, I called my leave and accommodation team and explained the situation.

Now, my FMLA is exhausted however my company has “medical accommodations” which are essentially job protections outside of FMLA. So I filed my medical accommodation and my doctor sent it back to them.

The following week at my first cervical check since the hospital, turns out the constant contractions were in fact causing changes in my cervix. A member of my HR team has now gone back and forth with me via email for the last 4 days questioning why my doctor prescribed me out 3 weeks before delivery (which realistically they should only need a reason for the first week considering the other two are part of my approved parental leave). I have said in each email that it was due to “contractions brought on by stress” and she just keeps asking for more information. I keep asking WHAT SHE NEEDS FROM MY DOCTOR because clearly the paperwork wasn’t filled out to their liking but she just keeps questioning me. I called my doctor’s office and they’re confused as to what they’re looking for on the paperwork because they’ve never had this kind of pushback from an employer. But she won’t give me a straight answer of what she needs; does she need the paperwork resubmitted with more information? She won’t say. She just keeps asking ME why I went out and then not accepting the answer but won’t tell me how to resolve it. I give birth in 5 days and I really cannot handle the stress of my leave/Hr team being this god damn difficult.