Why not take the year off from your current job and use the latter part of the leave for job hunting?
I was getting ready to give the FMLA answer, but if you’re in Canada, never mind. But you don’t have any obligation to tell them up until the minimum amount of notice required to take your leave. They have no business knowing if you’re trying to get pregnant or if it’s an accident or what, and can’t discriminate against you even if you’re already pregnant when you start.
Agree with perfectparnoia. Live your life like you would. There will be PLENTY of opportunities to change your life once you actually are pregnant and/or have children.
You are in the US, right? You won’t be eligible for FMLA right away at a new job. Not until you’ve worked for a specified number of hours over a 12 month period. They won’t have to hold your job for you. In this economy, they probably won’t.
Short term disability goes up to 6 weeks for maternity leave, typically. It’s extensible on occasion, but only if you have severe birth complications. And FMLA only mandates 12 weeks of leave every 12 months. So, unless you would qualify for long-term disability (not going to happen, unless the birth actually leaves you permanently disabled), you will not be able to take a year off of work and keep your job protected. At EITHER place. Unless you have an employment contract which specifically states otherwise (like if you’re allowed sabbaticals).
I would stay at your current place and take your maternity leave through them, as much as they will allow. They will most certainly be more lenient with you than a new employer, and if you get laid off from them because you don’t come back, or even if you get fired, you can apply for unemployment benefits. I DO NOT recommend throwing your company out with the baby’s bathwater here, though. You will almost certainly be required to wait a certain amount of time before you can even claim STD benefits (3 or 6 months, depends on the place).
Job search during your year off, come back to work for a token period (if they will even hold your job, again they’re not legally required to hold it for more than your short term disability + 12 FMLA weeks of leave), and then switch employers. FYI some places will not let you use STD and FMLA benefits separately, but may force you to use them concurrently. So 12 weeks total might be IT for you.
It’s not a question of being a jerk. Do what you gotta do. But companies are going to do what they gotta do, too. Finding a new job and then taking a year off… no company is legally required to hold a job for that long for ANY employee (unless they have an employment contract stating otherwise, which is typically an executive-only thing). They’re not even legally required to give you FMLA before you’ve been working there a year.
More info here Maternity leave: Here's what you need to know | BabyCenter
If you want to take 12 months off of work, that’s not leave or disability. It’s a very, very, very long vacation. And I don’t believe any employer would support your decision to do that.
No, they can’t fire her if she gets pregnant while employed there. But they do have every right to fire her if she doesn’t come back for an entire year when the maximum required disability only lasts 12 weeks.
Ahh I got ninjaed by a bunch of people over lunch break. Lucky you live in Canada. Can you provide a link to the 12-month rehire rule?
http://www.servicecanada.gc.ca/eng/ei/types/special.shtml#Maternity3
Here you go. Women receive maternity leave, and then parents receive additional parental leave not to exceed 52 weeks. There is a 2 week waiting period for EI which is unpaid, but as EmAnJ mentioned, many employers top up for the first 12 weeks. My employer topped up for 18 (I’m currently on maternity leave).
Like I needed another reason to want to repatriate to our friendly northern neighbors!
I don’t have any family there though, or marketable skills at the moment. Gotta get my degree I suppose. Then maybe. Just maybe!!
Dammit, Canada, stop being so civilized. It makes us in the US sad for us.
Regarding the year off idea - I don’t think I’d qualify for EI if I quit, so that won’t work. I’d love to take a year off!
Also, I am considering not coming back to the mainstream workforce or coming back part time. I have a grand plan to get my yoga certification and transition into becoming a yoga teacher with a focus in pre / post natal yoga. That depends on a lot of things, but if it all works out, that’s what I hope to end up doing.
You can qualify for EI if you quit a job and have documented the abuse that forced you to quit (I did this successfully 
).
I agree that you should live your life as if not planning a pregnancy; you don’t know what’s going to happen, and as you say, you’ve had your last straw at this job, so move on. I mean, companies aren’t thrilled to find out that their new hire is newly pregnant, too, but it happens and everyone deals.
These types of threads have come up before. I can only offer this for you to consider from one who has gone through fertility treatments.
I tbink you need to put yourself first because employers only look out for themselves, too.
You do need to consider how far the clinic is from your potential new work place. Will you have to take days off on your fertile days? What about days off for sad times or times when you feel your body has had enough? Of course you can use sick days and be legal, but consider the atmosphere it might create among your coworkers. Perhaps nothing will happen, perhaps they may be disgruntled enough to make you want to leave. Is your industry small enough that this might harm future work?
That’s a good point. I think at this point I can get away with a couple of days a month where I have an ‘appointment’ at some point during the day. I will likely need an ultrasound at some point pre-ovulation, thought this can be done in the evening. The IUI’s themselves are done between 11:30 and 1:30, so I should be able to take a long lunch.
This company is much closer to home and the clinic then my current job, so that would make things easier. I guess I have to feel things out a bit in the interview and if they offer a job to see what would be acceptable. That said, at my current job I am having a few struggles with taking time off too (I’m doing all my dental work right now and have had to have a number of cavities re-done, a root canal and a cap, which is done in separate sessions), so I think I’ll have the same issues with visits to the clinic. For instance, I told my boss that I had a ‘specialist appointment’ this coming Thursday (it’s our first consult) and that I’d be out for two hours. He was upset, but didn’t say anything (I have let him assume I have endometriosis and he thinks the appointment is for that, so doesn’t say anything).
Ah, anyway, I’m getting ahead of myself. I might blow the interview, or maybe they don’t offer enough as a salary or something.
Yeah, you might be getting a bit ahead of yourself, but it’s a good idea to go into this having thought about different eventualities too, though.