Hi,
Looking for some advice as no idea at all about any of this.
Basically, was working as a unqualified teacher for 18 months, but left at the end of Easter term because my job was away from my husband and it had been a really difficult pregnancy (was signed off for 4 weeks at beginning with HG and then for 4 weeks due to stress because work was awful which ran up to when I was due to leave anyway). Due to when I left school, I'm not entitled to maternity pay or SMP from them so I was going to claim MA eventually which ultimately works out the same anyway.
My issue is this though- I have never been unemployed- even when I was at uni, I did temping work and things and thought that when I moved to be with my husband I would just get back into temping work again until a month before my due date. So technically I left teaching on the 31st May and have been temping since last week. But I am absolutely exhausted- get home every night and just cry because I'm so so tired and feel so sick (ongoing problem with pregnancy) and awful and I can't carry on doing it, but the thought of being without money (my partner works & earns a good wage, but I need my own ££ to cover bills and various things i.e. loan I took out back in the day to do my masters etc). I'm currently 23 weeks pregnant.
Can anyone offer any advice about what I can do- whether I can claim any kind of benefit if I don't work (have never done this before in my life, don't know rights or what I could get- everything online confuses me) - how much is this likely to be- should I just claim maternity allowance as soon as I can.. any help would be so so appreciated. I am also assuming that having worked for only liumited time for temping agency, I can still claim MA rather than SMP?
Thank you