I recently accepted a new job, and worked out that I could still take 12 weeks of unpaid maternity leave, and the company would pay their share of my health insurance premium. Because I wanted to start there as quickly as possible and also go on their health insurance as quickly as possible (I'm due at the end of October so I didn't really want to change health insurance in October), I gave them a start date at the end of July, was given a range for salary and an offer contingent on my background check clearing, and was told an offer letter would be forthcoming. A week before I was supposed to start, they reneged on salary and told me that salaries were frozen and non negotiable and lower than the rate that the person in HR had quoted me. I immediately expressed concerns to the department head that this made me afraid they would reneg on my maternity leave. He assured me this would not be a problem, and then yesterday they reneged on maternity leave and now I can take 6-8 weeks or whatever is medically necessary. I had let my boss know that she could go ahead and extend an offer for my job to one of the candidates they interviewed (I did this for personal/organizational reasons that have to do with me liking the people I work for and thinking they should be able to move forward on the hiring process.) So at this point I have no leg left to stand on and was told that I was never technically promised 12 weeks (even though I was, just not by the HR director and not technically in writing, although it is very clear from my emails that I had been told this over and over and over again.)

I keep mulling this over in my head and genuinely believe that this is an attempt on their part to keep me from taking the job. I start in less than two weeks and even though I was told yesterday that since I was still willing to take the job (which the director of HR seemed to find disappointing), I would have a formal offer letter right away. However, still no formal offer.

Has anyone experienced pregnancy discrimination in hiring? Does anyone know how hard it is to prove?