My name is Brooke, I'm 18, and I'm about 7 months pregnant.
After deciding to keep the baby for sure in July, I began making plans for my future. When I found out in May, I dropped out of school with the intention of getting my GED. However, I suddenly got a burst of conscience and re-registered for high school. Now in my senior year, I want to get done as soon as possible so that I can get away from my parents and begin living life on my own.
My plans are to graduate high school in the class of 2009, head to AASU the following fall to major in English/Liberal Arts with teacher certification, and then move out once I have an established job. My long time boyfriend of 3 years is currently enrolled in an EMT program at Savannah Tech and he will eventually transfer to Paramedic. Both his parents and my parents are 100% supportive and willing to help us in every way possible. Right now, they are still supporting us for free and are going to walk us through schooling with as much financial support for the baby as they can possibly give. We are also taking advantage of government aide (Medicaid, WIC, TANF) and he is working so our parents aren't fully taking the responsibility from us. Anyway, I've been doing great in school so far, but I've been having a lot of questions about maternity leave.

The counselor says I can take six weeks off with the homebound program as long as I have a doctors note, but my principal is insisting that (after refusing to waive absences from last semester, causing me to fail and lose all credits from last year) I only take off two weeks. I know for a fact that after two weeks, it's going to be difficult waking up at 6AM to go to school everyday after not getting any sleep anyway. I know it takes at least four weeks to understand a baby's schedule and my doctor wants me to stay home after xmas break because January 3rd is too close to my due date (January 12th) to go back. The principal is telling me that if I don't stay in school until my water freaking breaks and if I don't come back after the two weeks, the absences will be considered "unexcused" and I will fail an an entire years worth of classes (my prelabor leave and postlabor leave all fall in between semester change, and we're only allowed to miss four days per semester).

I find this to be a very inflexible and unsympathetic response to my pregnancy. I am trying to get an education and set an example for my son but she is making it extremely hard. I've heard word of a TAPP program that another high school is sponsoring but I don't really know anything about it so:

What are student maternity rights in GA AND
What is TAPP, what all does it have to offer, and how much time to they permit you take off??

I am not looking for a break, because I have no problem doing all the work at home while I'm recovering. I just don't think I'll have the energy to sit in a classroom all day and complete my assignments, then come home and take care of a baby for at least four weeks, since six seems to be so unreasonable.