AIBU to not tell my employer?

[Candycrush426]

Hi all.

My husband and I are struggling to conceive. We have been ttc for over a year now. We have our first fertility clinic appointment next week. I have pcos - a period 2/3 times a year at most. Aibu to not tell my employer that I’m am TTC. I am looking to work my way up at work, I don’t want to tell them in case this stops them wanting me to progress. If I knew 100% I could fall pregnant then I wouldn’t pursue working my way up, but as there is a possibly I couldn’t fall pregnant for a number of years would I be unreasonable to not say anything?

It's NOTHING to do with them, why would you tell them? You're already probably being paid 20-30% lower than your male colleagues and being subtly discriminated against because of your gender/age ( i.e. you may have kids) so why give them more ammo?

I wouldn't expect anyone in my team to disclose such a thing. 'To attend to personal matters' would be more than sufficient.

I agree with the majority. None of the employers’ business. If you’re having difficulty it may, as you say, be years away. In the meantime if you are trying to work your way up career wise, you may create a barrier to future promotion if your employer associates you with the perceived work/life issues motherhood creates. Say nothing and adjust your plans accordingly when the time comes. Be vague about any appointments or take them out of your holiday allowance if that’s an option. Good luck by the way.

what I meant is if I did need time off for appointments or scans etc do I need to explain why

That makes more sense for my first scan I just said I had a hospital appointment. My boss is too scared to offend anyone to ask!

You are entitled to time off for pregnancy-related appointments though so once you're comfortable telling people (if you are fortunate enough to conceive) bear that in mind.

Of course you don't have to tell your employer.

Good luck with TTC, I hope it happens before long. Then it will be time to tell your boss, sort out mat leave etc.

I'd rather not to be told that someone is TTC frankly!

Absolutely none of your employers business.

Not at all.

Why would you even think about telling them

Normally I would say that your TTC is none of their business. But as PP have said, if you’re about to start IVF then most large companies will have a fertility treatment policy whereby you can go to appointments and have time off for treatment and it won’t be counted as sick leave or anything.

A good friend and colleague of mine went through IVF and tried to keep it a secret. I think she ended up confiding in her line manager and her line manager was like, ‘you do know you’re allowed time off for IVF you big numpty?!’

Check your company handbook, or equivalent.

You don't need to tell them anything, if you do feel you need to "explain" appointments then you could simply say you are having treatment for an ongoing gynae issue.

I think unless you are working in a hazardous chemical environment or something like the nuclear industry you are not unreasonable to keep it to yourself and progress your career as you see fit.

If there is something about where you work that could effect your ability to conceive or wld put a pregnancy at risk then I would have a quiet word with an understanding boss - if no understanding boss then HR

Personally I think if you are going through treatment and you have a good relationship with boss then I would tell them. I had ivf and I am a teacher so wasn’t just a case of bilking holiday days/mornings etc for appointments and so had to be upfront about why I needed the time off. Then again round egg collection I needed time to recover etc. I am happy to say that my head was incredibly supportive of the whole thing but I also didn’t take the piss. Where possible kept disruption to work at a minimum.

I wouldn’t say until you know it might affect work though. Early investigations time could maybe be booked? Depends on the job you so. My friend also had ivf but works flexi time etc so didn’t tell boss because appointments didn’t directly impact with work.

'what I meant is if I did need time off for appointments or scans etc do I need to explain why'

Tell them you have a medical appt. End of. Or the dentist. or whatever.You don't have to specify.
My asst had dental work and he had about a dozen appts over a few months. He made the time up mostly, though we let a few slide. NHS dentist so he did try to be mindful of not having them right in the middle of the day but mostly he had to go when offered the appt.
Everyone had their stuff. But women get a bad wrap over the whole motherhood thing.
Looking at my staff, some of the best, most reliable staff have been mothers, some of the flakiest - younger men. I've had blokes needing a lot of time off for illness, or for family stuff too. But it's not affected their careers in the same way.

You do not need to tell them. I only mentioned to my line manager when I was having problems (recurrent miscarriage) requiring appointments and medical treatment.

If you need to give a reason for appointments, then "gynae issues" is both accurate and likely to stop them asking further.

Say PCOS investigations.

You don't even need to say 'women' problems, just literally say 'medical treatment' and if they push say 'its not life threatening but it's in my best interests to deal with it now'

I would only tell them if they have a policy of paid time off for fertility treatment, other than that it's none of their business.

I only told work I was pregnant when I was 5 months and had just been formally promoted. I knew that if I told them before the promotion assessment I wouldn't have gotten it (and that was confirmed unofficially).

No regrets at all. I deserved the promotion and got it fairly. I did the job 3 months, then had 8 months off (2 before birth due to complications) and then came back and did the job well and continued to advance my career.

No complaints from management.

I did actually tell my employer I was TTC. The reason being I had to take quite a lot of time out of the office for appointments and we were working on a very stressful engagement for a very important client.
I wouldn’t have felt comfortable taking all of that time out without my manager knowing the true reason. I don’t feel I was treated any differently as a result, if anything I was probably showing a bit more consideration. Especially given our fertility treatment did not work.

Good luck with it all. It is hard to keep such a big part of what’s going on in your life private from work when you spend so much time at work, but I decided to and just said I needed investigations for medical issues. For me it was looking into causes for recurrent miscarriages rather than IVF but I would have adopted the same approach. Once you tell someone, it then isn’t just about how they’ll respond & how supportive they are but also you can’t control who else they tell.
I liked the wording @leadbetter5 suggested.

None of their business! It's your private life, they don't own you. You could just cause yourself problems by telling them.

There's no need to tell them but you might be surprised at the support they may offer. i did tell as i was already a manager and my first appointment(3hrs) happened to fall on the same day as a must attend annual meeting at head office in a different city. Spoke to my area manager who cleared it for my deputy to attend and he was totally supportive throughout 2 rounds. For a lot of my appointments I popped out of work for a couple of hours then just stayed later on the evening (this was retail so open late). When i finally got a positive test (naturally) i went to see my new area manager and my old area manager had filled him in on my previous struggles and he was over the moon. I was even given a larger store with payrise whilst pregnant started there the day after my 12wk scan. Not all employees are against pregnancy and this is a low cost discounter.

My employer allows reasonable paid time off for IVF treatment so it would be worth speaking to your employer if they allow similar. If not then no i wouldn't tell them.

I wouldn’t in this case however I had to with my work as a lot of places I go ask the question “any chance you could be pregnant”, so a safety issue.

I think by law you don't even have to tell them when you are pregnant for like, 20 weeks or something.