My wife had a baby on Feb. 14, so I did not work on the 14th, 15th, and 18th (Thursday, Friday, and Monday). Upon returning to work, I was told to approve my logged time as vacation time for those days. I requested to use Personal Days, but was denied. While out for the birth, I was also ill. I was seen in an urgent care facility on Saturday for sinusitis and received medication. I now am attempting to utilize sick time with the doctor's note that I acquired. My supervisors and HR Dept. are insisting that the reason I was out was for childbirth not my sickness, and must take the time as vacation. This is not written in any policy that I can find. Also the reason that I cannot use Personal time is, according to HR, pregnancy and birth are "somewhat planned".

I would much rather use Personal or sick time for this event and save vacation time for a later time. According to my benefits information, I am considered salary - exempt and have 10 "salary continuation days" to use in the case of missed work due to personal, sick, or weather issues.

Please advise if my employer is able to force me to take vacation days in this instance over personal or sick time.

Yes, the employer can require the use of vacation time. Whether it's appropriate or not is not something I'll make a judgment on. But it's legal.

The federal and state governments do not require that companies provide any paid time off, such as vacation or sick time and tend to shy away from regulating company policies about the use of what they do provide.

It is not uncommon for a company to require that sick leave be used ONLY for the illness of the employee and not for the illness of a family member (personally, I think that kind of policy reeks, but that is me). My state requires that available sick leave be allowed for care of a family member, but this is a labor friendly state and that law does not exist in most of the other states.

The problem in your case is that you have the unfortunate coincidence of a personal illness that might have been covered at the same time as a more or less planned absence that would not have been.

I see that you showed the documentation about your personal illness, but that won't be allowed by the company. Not a great decision on their part, but not illegal.