Just gotten off the phone to the DWP Maternity Allowance helpline and apparently they have no record of my claim which I made about 8 weeks ago.
When discussing it with the man on the phone who was actually very lovely and very helpful, apparently quite a few job centres keep giving out the wrong address for paperwork to be sent (they give you a pre written envelope). Therefore my claim forms, MAT1B and other evidence have disappeared into a black hole.
Long and the short of it is that I am on maternity leave in five weeks. It takes six weeks currently to process a claim but my midwife is off work until Wednesday so I can't get a duplicate MAT1B until at least then as my doctors are refusing to do it.
So I'm going to be on maternity leave for at least 2 or 3 weeks with my claim having not been processed and no maternity allowance.
This sucks!
PS I've NC because my DM suggested that I post on MN asking for advice and I have no idea if she'll end up reading this!