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Yes, you have a rough idea when babies are due. My middle child was born 5 weeks early, however. My last was born 3 weeks early. I've had employees send me a note a day after saying 'sorry, baby came early. more later'.

If you have any reaction other than "oh, ok, hope everyone is healthy", you are probably a terrible human being.

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Regardless of the actual timing, if you have informed your employer that you are having a baby and it could be anywhere in the time frame, I think that should be accepted. However, if one day you are just gone and then came back and say 'we just had a baby', and that's the first time your employer has heard about it, then yeah, I can see that as a real problem.

In this kind of situation, it is much better to keep people you are obligated to as informed as possible, not keep it a secret. No matter if the baby comes a month early, at least they know you may be out and not wondering why you would miss without any indication you were expecting a child.

Huh, my coworkers who have had pregnant spouses generally gave us a heads-up around week 24... unlikely to be that premature, but it helps everyone plan for that possibility.

Even if you give people at work a heads up at week 24, that's still a lot of weeks left to go in the ideal case. I caused my mother to get an emergency C-section 4 weeks early and it still wreaked havoc with everything - most importantly, my father missed my birth because he had to go pick up my grandmother flying in from halfway across the world, who thought 4 weeks was plenty early.

Besides, this kerfuffle says volumes about how some people would still react to an unexpected emergency. Death or severe illness in the family? Immediate medical emergencies? Taking care of myself and my immediate family comes before any corporate bullshit, personally. I wouldn't have it any other way.

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