Hi All,

I have been pregnant since 28 weeks and my due date is in the last week of June 2008. I have been working for a company that have 50+ employee in CA since October 2007 through mid of January 2008 part-time only (app. 288h) and since 21 Jan 2008 its a full time job.
My questions:
1. Will I be eligible for Maternity leave 4 weeks before my due date and 6 weeks after (SDI).
2. If so, my concern is abut the SDI compensation. If I decide to take maternity leave from the begining of June, SDI will be calculated upon my employmnet from January 2007 to 31 December 2007. That is my biggest worried, because at that time I worked only part-time and my weekly salary was less then $400 per week. So, as far as I'm concern I can get through SDI app. $200 per week? Since I'm not having group insurance from work yet, and I have a lot medical bills to pay. I'm affraid that $200/weekly won't be enough to make a leaving and pay the bills.
Please advise me what can I do to improve my situation.

California law is very complicated on pregnancy leave issues, and that is not my area of expertise, so I'll leave that to someone else.

However, disability benefits and lookback periods under the California Disability Insurance program are set by law and there is nothing you can do to increase the amount. If you don't have a private disability policy already, or additional disability insurance through your employer in which you had already enrolled, you're probably out of luck. Contact your county welfare agency at that point to see if you might be eligible for benefits through a state or county program.

You will be entitled to take Pregnancy Disability Leave 4 weeks prior to birth and 6 weeks after (8 for c-section) regardless of the amount of time you have worked for your employer. Based on your dates of employment, you will not be eligible for FMLA or CFRA leave.

As for your SDI benefits, your base period determines the amount of SDI you will collect. So, the only way to change that is to change the date you file for SDI (thereby changing your base period). It doesn't look like you will be able to do this.

Pregnancy Disability Leave-(under Fair Employment & Housing Act)
An employer must provide up to four months disability leave for a woman who is disabled due to pregnancy, childbirth, or a related medical condition. (subject to med. cert.) However, if an employer provides more than four months of leave for other types of temporary disabilities, the same leave must be made available to women who are disabled due to pregnancy, childbirth, or a related medical condition.
Eligibility for pregnancy leave
A woman who works for a covered employer is eligible for pregnancy disability leave regardless of the length of time she has worked for the employer. Further, an employee does not have to work full-time in order to be eligible.
(This is unpd. job protected leave.)

Ca. SDI info - includes pregnancy info:
http://www.edd.ca.gov/direp/dicfp.htm