Hi Bryce, 

I don't know about others, but it seems that new employees often have life events within the first year at at higher frequency than tenured employees. We try to be reasonable in these situations, and think outside the legal obligations, and will consider the following for employees, usually in this order:

1. Maternity Recovery Leave - we offer 3 weeks of paid leave for mothers to recover after childbirth, regardless of how long they have worked for us. 

2. Flex time--can employees work different shifts or from home to get their hours in? Are their other assignments that we can adjust?

3. Comp time--can employees work extra hours before (or after) the event?  

4. Leave Donations--are other employees willing to donate leave to the employee? Our leave donation program allows employees to accept leave when they are completely out of their own. 

5. Negative Leave Balances--could we let an employee use more than currently accrued, if they can "climb out of the hole" by year's end or soon after? 

6. Paid Admin Leave--would Department Head / Administration be open to granting paid Admin Leave in good faith? 

7. Unpaid time--is the employee okay without a full check, on a short-time basis?

There may be other ideas as well, but we try to find a solution, rather than a hard no. 

I would reference the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, which is called the “PWFA.” The PWFA requires a covered employer to provide a reasonable accommodation to a worker’s known limitation related to pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions, unless the accommodation will cause the employer an undue hardship. Perhaps the accommodation could be approved unpaid time off. Pregnancy itself doesn't qualify as a disability, but the pregnant employee may have one or more impairments related to their pregnancy that qualify under ADA.   Here's a link to this info:  https://www.eeoc.gov/pregnancy-discrimination.