This is quite a long ramble so I’ll apologise now.
Background info- I’m almost 30 weeks pregnant, I told work just after our 12 week scan so they’ve known about my pregnancy for approximately 4 months.
I’ve worked for the company for a couple of years, and have spent the last year covering the job of an employee in long term sick as well as continuing with my own work and bring the company through an audit.
When I told my boss I was pregnant they said they’d never had to do maternity leave/pay before so would have to figure it out and tell me about it in due course, 2 weeks later I got a letter stating they would confirm what leave and benefits I was entitled to when I handed in my matb1 certificate.
I’ve carried on as normal, and have had a fairly easy pregnancy so I’be not been out sick at all and have just carried on with my workload. During this time my colleague in sick has started a phased return (this is now in its 5th month, and I’m still covering about 60% of her work). She’s is very defensive and difficult to work with. In covering her job I’d had minimal training before she went off sick as she doesn’t like anybody else to do her work in case they steal her job 
(For the record I have no interest in having her role full time) so I went in basically blind and muddled through, we got to a stage where things were running smoothly if not exactly as it was previously.
Since she’s returned to work it’s become a bit of a rubbish situation for me, she won’t ask me any questions about work, and she only talks to me to tell me I’ve done something wrong (generally not wrong just different to her method) she doesn’t hand over when she leaves and so I’m left flapping to catch up. It’s very difficult to address this with her as she immediately starts shouting (she’s always been this way) and then allowances are made for her because she has had cancer. (I’m not denying she has been through an incredibly difficult time, but if she is ready to come back to work surely she should be able to handle the work load).
So that’s the first thing that’s got me down/annoyed.
The next thing is the letter I received from work last week finally telling me my maternity pay and including a risk assessment. The maternity pay is smp only which has really wound me up (I know the sick employee got her full salary for 6 months) but I know I have no recourse as legally that’s all they have to pay me, but I do feel a bit cheated, I’ve worked my arse off for the last 18 months and not even had a thank you! I also wonder if this was only decided after I put in my maternity dates with my matb1 as I’m taking the full year (I did think about coming back early but thought it best to put in dates for a year which I could adjust later).
The risk assessment I’ve had done just seems like a bit of a joke to me. I’m not sure how a risk assessment can be done when I’m not even present but that’s what has happened.
Apparently I’m unlikely to sit at my desk or use my computer for long periods of time, yet my job is 90% office work. So I’m sat at my desk for ~7 hours out of every 9. They provide a rest area by allowing me to go out of work on a lunchtime... and I have a fully adjustable office chair. I don’t, it goes up and down and that’s it. I already bought a back support because I was so uncomfortable about a 8 weeks prior to the risk assessment.
There’s nothing about going into the factory, which as part of my job I have to pass through to get to a ‘lab’ that’s running machinery. We manufacture plastic pellets so generally have molten plastic about and lots of pellets of the floor- surely this should be taken into account?
And then the last thing- yesterday I put in a holiday for for the start of the new year, my maternity leave is due to start early January so I’ve put in a holiday request to cover the first part of the month, effectively I’ll finish when we break up for Xmas but be on holiday to start with. I have this to my boss yesterday (who is the M.D./owner) and first he questioned why I was doing that, but in a very accusatory manner and then asked we’ll do you even get holiday?!
Apparently he doesn’t deal with these things so he’ll show it to the hr director, who happens to be his wife.
The whole thing has just really wound me up, I feel like I’ve worked so hard to have everything thrown in my face, and surely as the M.D. he should make it his business to look into these things (it’s a very small company, only 16 employees). The fact it’s taken 4 months to tell me I’m only getting smp and to give me a risk assessment that’s not worth the paper it’s written on (or at least that’s how I feel).
I don’t want to be here any more and each day getting up to come to work is so difficult. I’m struggling to sleep since all this has kicked off though I’m not sure if that’s just due to my sheer size now!
I’ve written this on the app so sorry if I don’t make any sense!!