HR bees and/or those with experience! I'd love some expert and experienced advice.

It appears my current employer (12 employees, one state, 2 offices) will be acquired by a much larger company (200 - 300+ employees, 5 states, 12+ offices) in October or November while I'm on maternity leave. (Due date is October 1).

In another post, I've written about the leave that I was able to negotiate. Basically, without qualifying for FMLA due to company size, I was able to work out 6 weeks fully paid, plus 2 weeks of my vacation/sick, then a short period of transition time when I could work part-time up to 29 hours (but receiving no benefits). Anyway, this agreement is in writing and he has passed it along to the new company as a condition of the sale.

I'm not happy about only 8 weeks away from work but I realize getting paid is unusually good. I could also bring baby to the office and/or work from home in those transitional, part-time 4-ish weeks. My biggest gripe is the time pressure... time learning how to be a mom, time with my baby, time to readjust my whole everything .... I wish there were at least another solid month of leave to rely on since the work culture is so intense and those transitional 4 weeks of baby at office and/or work from home will be a challenge even under the best circumstances...

A little more squishy, but the owner/boss said if I never come back full-time that he would have to give my job to someone else. I imagine that he expects me to be full-time again after 12 weeks from start of leave. I've basically turned around my little satellite office from rags-to-riches in 8 (mostly pregnant) months since running it, so I would really like to see him take my job and give it to someone else who can do what I did.... but that's just the badass in me. I'm just at a point in my career where if I'm not valued, the employer can really eff the hell off, but I digress. Seriously, though, it's been a challenge and quite demoralizing at times negotiating maternity leave with a older, male boss who doesn't get it (as nice and generous as he is attempting to be) and not having an HR person to work it out with.

New company is huge, based in TN (where 16 weeks of FMLA leave is the norm!? Go TN!). I'm in GA and, as I mentioned I'm a satellite office so I'm unsure how the new company's maternity leave policy will follow or go beyond FMLA, but I hear that their benefits are much better on the whole. They have other satellites so something tells me they would extend an FMLA-based maternity leave policy equally to satellite employees even with less than 50 people in 75 miles or whatever the rule is. That's what I have experienced in other large national companies.

In the next day or two, I will have 30 minutes of time to speak with the new HR person of the big company. Mind you, this merger is still tentative but it's looking very good. I'd like to go in with some idea of how best to advocate for myself. I've tried to educate myself by googling some HR articles but it gets legalese really fast. https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/tools-and-samples/hr-qa/pages/mergersandfmla.aspx. What I do understand so far is that I should qualify for any FMLA benefit in the event of a merger since I have been with my current company over a year.

So....what should I ask HR? My current employer thinks he has worked everything out and is ensuring me a great leave package. (Actually today someone said in a conference call -- is Amorini going to have time with HR to discuss her maternity leave? Boss said, "oh she doesn't need to, I've worked all of that out for her!" .... argh) I'd like to take advantage of any leave benefit that I can get, to be quite honest, including more non-work time with my LO. I'd also like to understand how I might actually qualify for job protection if I remain part-time for awhile longer or forever. And is there a way to merge the best of both worlds for my maternity leave? (Some paid leave and some extra time guaranteed, plus job protection...)

Also what benefits questions should I ask, specifically that help working moms and families? The last time I worked at a company with good benefits for families, I didn't have a baby on the horizon so I can't even remember what is typically offered!

Thanks!!! I appreciate it!!!