Fmla/ Childbirth

Location: South Carolina, USA. Hi everyone, I am in need of advice ASAP. For context: I am currently 37 weeks pregnant and have a scheduled c-section in the next 2 weeks. I work full time as a teacher for a public school district and so does my spouse, so some of our FMLA comes out of a shared spousal pool. I qualify for 6 weeks of paid parental leave and he qualifies for 2 weeks of paid parental leave. I applied for 6 weeks PPL beginning directly after my scheduled surgery followed by an additional 6 weeks for child bonding, so that I could remain in my designated 12 week allotment of FMLA a year. Please note: neither my husband or I have taken any FMLA this school year or in previous years.

I filed my FMLA/PPL leave paperwork in May before summer break. It was shared to the leave director at the beginning of June, and I did not receive any word on a return date until last week and I am furious/confused. The person(s) in charge of leave for my employer are stating that I am only allowed 10 weeks of FMLA following my c-section “due to the law requiring families under the same employer to share FMLA time.” I attempted to research this and am under the impression that a c-section would qualify as my own serious health condition but they seem to be compiling it together with my husbands leave and taking it out of our shared pool established for “child bonding.” When I raised question about this I was given the following response: “You and your spouse must share the total 60 FMLA days which cuts your time out under FMLA to 50 days including the 30 PPL days in that count.” I am pissed that I’m just being told this as we planned childcare around a 12 week return…

Is only being granted 10 weeks correct? Any help or insight is greatly appreciated thank you in advance!