Maternity leave?

[JumpingForJuly]

Hello,

Not sure about maternity leave really.

im 22 weeks pregnant working part/full time-ish ranging from 10-30hrs a week.
Not a job that I'm finding difficult but I really dislike it and want to leave as soon as I can so 29 weeks pregnant.

I will be 29 weeks pregnant on the 21st of April, so have asked if I can use my 21 days holiday to start my maternity leave.
So techincally finish at 26 weeks on the 1st April.
I have had no answer on this and I asked last Friday so need to chase it up.

But what I dont understand is how long you can take off for maternity leave? I was speaking to someone and said I would hope to take a year off and not go back but they said I might have to pay my maternity pay back?

Sorry for the long rambling post, I just dont understand how long you can take and off and how much of it is paid time off.

Any advice would be appreciated as you can tell, Im clueless!!

You can take anything up to a year off. See here about maternity leave and here about Statutory Maternity Pay, which lasts 39 weeks.

If you get SMP only you won't have to pay anything back. If your employer pays more than that, you need to check your maternity policy to see whether you would have to pay anything back.

Do you not have HR you can ask about this. Obviously happy to help :) but they should be able to advise you about your maternity pay etc

Thanks for all the advice will speak to HR, the people who I work for dont make it easy to speak to them but Im going to make it my goal for today.