Maternity pay - miss out by days - will midwife amend due date on MATB1?

[HayleySteve95]

Hi, I am 19 weeks pregnant and have my 20 week scan on Thursday 2nd December. From my dating scan my due date is 21st April 2022 - however this is an IVF baby and the actual due date should be 26th April. To be entitled to higher rate maternity pay my due date needs to be 2nd May :( I am losing sleep over this and cannot afford to miss out on this maternity pay - I will lose out on nearly £4,000 and won't be able to afford very long off with my baby. Does anyone know when I will get given my MATB1 form? Do you think my midwife would put my due date as 2nd May instead to help me out, or will they refuse and put the due date of 21st April from my dating scan? It's really worrying me - any advice would be greatly appreciated!

[ComeAllYeFaithful]

Some employers aren’t arseholes and will still pay you early. It’s worth speaking to HR.

[BeeDavis]

Jesus christ, you can’t be serious?!

[Woohooforwine]

Absolutely not! I could understand it if was one day, but it’s in a an actual different month!

Surely if you’ve been doing IVF you’ve had plenty time to plan to financial side of having a baby

[PrincessNutella]

There has to be a cut-off somewhere. I feel frustrated with you, OP. I think your employer is your best bet. If they value you, they may be able to find some wiggle room to help you. Objectively, there have to be boundaries around a government entitlement or benefit. If they are written down and clear to all beforehand, then it is the individual's burden to meet them, not the other way around, or the government would go broke. But you are still in a very lucky position. You have a job. If you need to go back early, you can. Or you can start saving more now. You will have a roof over your head and a baby and at least a certain amount of time at home. It will all work out okay.

[bowlingalleyblues]

If you are certain of your IVF dates you can ask for due date to be changed back to 26 April, on the grounds that otherwise you could be induced early, and you’ll be more likely to miss our on mat pay. The scan dates are better than guesswork, but if you’re certain of ovulation dates yours are more accurate. Talk to the supervisor of midwives. I’d then appeal to your employer and say that you are one week out and can they be flexible. I would not ask the midwife to make up the date.

[MynameisJune]

@bowlingalleyblues

If you are certain of your IVF dates you can ask for due date to be changed back to 26 April, on the grounds that otherwise you could be induced early, and you’ll be more likely to miss our on mat pay. The scan dates are better than guesswork, but if you’re certain of ovulation dates yours are more accurate. Talk to the supervisor of midwives. I’d then appeal to your employer and say that you are one week out and can they be flexible. I would not ask the midwife to make up the date.

She wants the date moving to 2nd May, which has no bearing on any of her IVF or scan dates. That’s the date she needs for SMP. If it was a case of going on IVF dates rather than scan then I’m sure most people would be fine with that. But this is an arbitrary date she’s picked out to enable her to claim something she isn’t entitled to.

[Bells3032]

@bowlingalleyblues even if she puts it back to 26th then she'll still miss out by a week. And even if she is induced early it doesn't make any difference to mat pay as that's based on due date not the actual date of birth

[regthetabbycat]

[quote Missmissmiiiiiiiiisss]@MynameisJune it’s not really entitlement, it’s desperation! We have terrible statutory maternity pay. Some of the worst in developed countries (bar USA who should never be used to benchmark yourself!).
Women shouldn’t be put in this position.[/quote]
And you think that justifies expecting a midwife to risk losing her job??

[SW1amp]

Don’t put your midwife in that situation

But apropos nothing, I managed to lose my first matB form, so got another one when I went to my GP for my whooping cough jab

I said ‘oh, I managed to lose my form, do you mind doing another one?’
He said ‘sure. What’s your due date?’
I said ‘‘
He filled it in, I went on my way. The end.

[MapleMay11]

You're considering asking a healthcare professional to commit fraud, risking their job and therefore also their livelihood for the sake of 4K? I'm honestly speechless.

[BoredZelda]

Its actually quite disturbing that someone would ask a professional to put their career at risk like that.Its fraud...Speak to employers instead

This happens all the time, in all sorts of situations. I’ve been asked to do fraudulent things quite a lot in my career. As a professional you just refuse to do it and move on. It’s not like you sit for days worrying about it or get all conflicted and twisted about it.

Thus speaks someone who's never had IVF

Is there something about having IVF that means asking someone to commit fraud is a better option than adjusting the timescales so you don’t end up in this situation?

[AudacityBaby]

I've seen some entitlement in my time, but amending forms to entitle yourself to funding that you're not entitled to and justifying it cos it's noooooot faaaaaaair is on another level entirely.

Apparently if something is unfair to mothers women, the law doesn't count. Who knew...

[SinoohXaenaHide]

Although the phrasing of the law is complicated, that you have to have been working for the company for 26 weeks by the 15th week before your due date just means that you have to have already been working for your employer when you had your last period before conceiving i.e. that you definitely didn't arrive as an employee already pregnant.

As this is an IVF baby, for you to qualify for statutory maternity pay you would have been having the appointments for actually getting pregnant when you were a week or two into your new job. Is that what happened? Or did you have the IVF treatment and then start the new job later?

The difference between the true due date from your IVF fertilisation vs your desired pretend due date is a full week and it would be dangerous for your midwife to lie on your notes and claim a different due date to the truth, because various measurements for your developing baby's size and growth will be checked against what is typical for that week of gestation, and an inaccurate due date could mean a problem being missed. For your baby's sake she won't consider doing this, and she can't put a different date on the form than she has put in the notes.

Maternity Allowance is almost the same amount of money as SMP - the only difference is that it is administered as part of the benefits system rather than via your employer's payroll. You are almost certainly entitled to that. Be satisfied with what you are entitled to

[Franklin12]

Its an awful thing to ask a professional to do for effectively your own ends and as others said why didnt you plan this bettter if it was so important to you?

I really dislike people who say 'well I cannot afford it etc etc'. Rather like the people who go on holiday without insurance stating they couldnt afford the policy.

Awful awful entitled behaviour and what on earth has IVF got to do with asking someone to committ fraud.

[blueberryporridge]

Hi OP, I understand that it’s really disappointing about the mat pay. As a fellow IVF mum I would try and reframe it by thinking that you are so very lucky that your IVF was successful and that is the prize!"

This (from another IVF mum). I was self-employed for both my pregnancies so was only entitled to Maternity Allowance rather than Maternity Pay but we managed.

Also, for both my IVF pregnancies, my due date was calculated from the size of the babies at their dating scans, not from the date of the IVF treatment. There was a difference of almost a week ahead for one of them which could potentially have caused problems if I had been overdue in terms of the scan due date but not actually overdue in terms of IVF dates.

To be honest, the cost of a baby through to 18 years is so horrendously high that £4k is not going to make a huge amount of difference, and maybe if you save hard between now and May you can make up at least some of the shortfall. But I know that it will be hard for you looking at losing out (as you perceive it) on £4k when the baby is born.

I take it that you know you are probably entitled to Maternity Allowance even if you are not entitled to Statutory Maternity Pay? Here is some info which might be useful. maternityaction.org.uk/advice/money-for-parents-and-babies/

[Greenmarmalade]

Could you get a £4000 loan (for Jim’s improvements if asked) and pay it off gradually? Might help you to stay home longer?

Could you do a phased return and go back a couple of days per week?

Also factor in childcare- you’ll be saving £££ by staying home just on basic maternity allowance. Childcare costs are astronomical.

[Bellyups]

@HayleySteve95 you are a CF

[AndMatt]

I think you'd be asking the midwife to commit fraud.

There might be an argument to change it to the IVF date but not more than that.

[MakeWayMoana]

@Scirocco thanks, I wouldn’t have admitted it if it was recent 🙈 it was nearly 10 years ago and for a company I no longer work for.

[SickAndTiredAgain]

Also, what goes on the MatB1 form is the date of expected week of delivery, with weeks starting starting on a Sunday.
Depending how your enhanced mat pay eligibility is calculated, if you need it to be 2nd May or later, 2nd May is a Monday so the form would say 1st May which might exclude you anyway.
So you’d need the midwife to put week starting 8th May. Which is about 3 weeks later.

[ThisIsStartingToBoreMe]

No you can't ask your midwife to do this. If you do ask, you will ruin the relationship you have with her going forward.

Ignore the comments about IVF and timing - clearly posted by people who've never had IVF but think they know all about it.

[Cuwins]

I had a debate about dates and pay when we decided to start trying to conceive again after 2 miscarriages last year. We could have waited 2 months and I would have qualified for extra occupational pay (no where near the amount the OP is talking about though I have to say) or accept that if I feel pregnant first time (likely as getting pregnant was never my problem) I would loose out.
We decided to go for it and accept that I would only receive SMP if that happened- which it did. So we have been careful with money during the pregnancy and have a decent amount of savings to help out during the year I'm off.
I don't understand how if this was a carefully planned pregnancy (which IVF presumably is) you wouldn't have realised this problem before you fell pregnant and either delayed or if that's not an option with IVF then planned for the money drop.

[Littleheart5]

@MrsColon actually ‘thus speaks’ someone who has been through many many rounds of IVF

[Littleheart5]

As I read more, perhaps this is the difference between IVF in the UK and IVF in Ireland. All IVF privately paid for here, so we do choose our own dates/cycles

[Chloemol]

It’s a legal document, of course they won’t change it to help you defraud your company