Pregnant on H1B and need leave without pay fo 4-6 months

[Tapashi198609]

My wife joined her employer with L2 EAD on Nov 2011 got her H1B in March 2012 from her employer which was filed immediately after she joined and she is working for the company close to 1 year and now she is 4 months pregnant and expecting to deliver on Jan 2013 and she is planning to start her maternity leave from 2012 December end. She is planning to join back her employer after maternity leave but may require another 2 months of leave extension which is almost six months in total. During this whole period her employer is ok and he will not remove her from the job. In Parallel her employer also started the GC process from August 2012. Is my wife is in status? I read on the web that the maternity leave is mutual as long as the employer and employee relationship exists its ok. But my question is that is there a time limit on that. Also she will not get paid for the period when she will be on maternity leave. Please not the employer has less than 30 employees. So what are right steps to do.....

Few questions:

1. Per the maternity policy can she apply for FMLA for 12 weeks (loss of pay)?

2. If my current employer documents in a letter stating that I was on Maternity leave from date xxxxxxxx to date xxxxxxxx and keeps with him in the employee file that should be good?

3. If the leave reasons are properly documented will it cause any out of status problems?

4. If the requested the leave without pay is for a "normal" reason such as maternity leave not for lack of work will that be illegal?

5. If genuine reason for the leave is properly documented (pregnancy) case, will it be a problem in future for GC application?

[pontevecchio]

Why not just change her status to L2 if you are still in L1 status?