to think the prospective father does not need to go to every IVF appointment?

[TheOccupier]

Someone who indirectly works for me has recently let me know his wife is having IVF treatment. For the last couple of months, he's been absent frequently, often failing to answer emails, working from home if he's online at all, and not doing site visits which are an important and necessary part of his role. I am unhappy about this.

I am technically his client, not his employer - he's a long-term agency worker by choice (he is senior-level, with fairly unique skills and a lot of responsibility). He has spoken to his agency director about the situation and apparently they have signed off on it. Nobody has proactively communicated with me. I am not based at the office he is meant to work from so I rarely see him in person and wasn't even aware that he'd switched to WFH - I noticed a lot of out of office messages but put these down to site visits. I only found out about the IVF last week when I put him on the spot by asking for the date when he was last at a particular site that he's meant to visit weekly (because there's been an issue there that he should have picked up) and it turned out it's been over 2 months. He then told me what's going on.

So:
a) AIBU to be annoyed about him neglecting his work responsibilities and think IVF is not an acceptable justification?

b) AIBU to believe that the husband/partner does not actually need to attend the majority of IVF appointments and that my agency worker is being unreasonable in acting as though he's the one trying to get pregnant, especially as this is affecting his performance at work?

I am aware that IVF involves a lot of appointments and many of these will be at very short notice. However, the only people I know well who have done IVF have been women using it to become single mothers by choice, and therefore they have just got on with it and done most appointments on their own, other than when they needed physical support/driving home etc. I can't believe most prospective fathers go to ALL the appointments and get away with it at work - especially given that even women don't have any legal right to time off for IVF up until implantation!

If I'm not being unreasonable, how should I handle this? The guy would be difficult to replace, plus I really like him on a personal level, but his poor performance is now causing problems for me and others.

The OP has no idea if he's doing his job or not,

Yes she does, it’s in the OP that he hasn’t been doing site visits which are part of his job.

It’s a good point that he’s probably staying away from some places because of covid, but then he shouldn’t have accepted work that involved visiting sites. He hasn’t been completely open and honest about his current limitations, and he should have been.

Yes she does, it’s in the OP that he hasn’t been doing site visits which are part of his job

No, they are part of the contact with the agency to get done, he may have agreed with the agency that they are not part of his job - maybe someone else should be doing them, maybe they think the contract doesn't require them, nobody knows that - it's not about the individual, it's a business relationship between two businesses, and the OP is performing badly by instead of going to the agency who she's buying the service from but moaning about an employee of theirs.

Your problem is with the agency, you need to go back to them and tell them that the work is not getting done and they should be providing cover for this guy.

Speculating and sticking your nose into his private business and medical affairs is absolutely unprofessional and none of your business.

I do get you. And I’m speaking as a woman who has undergone IVF. My workplace weren’t aware that I was undergoing treatment and neither were DH’s. For one thing, it was none of their business and we used holiday to take time off for treatment and appointments. We didn’t see it as our employer’s responsibility to suck it up. That’s for the after part…

I do believe that I owed it to my, very good, employer and boss to ensure that I didn’t drop the ball while having treatment. You do get notice of appointments, so you should have time to organise for someone to cover or take over your responsibilities. I wouldn’t have felt comfortable just leaving work and not bothering to ensure that my projects and responsibilities would be looked after. It’s a little entitled for this guy to just drop things!

Of course it’s reasonable for a client to talk directly to him. . Surely you don’t expect her to call an agency to book a site visit.

I think you need to forget a about his personal situation and feed back to he company that the service you are paying for isn't being provided, mistakes are not being picked up and your deeply unimpressed with service. It's their job to sort it out. If he cant do his job he either needs to job share or take time off.

I had 5 cycles of ivf over 2yrs and dh came to every appointment with me

Whether scans egg collection or egg transfer

He wanted to be involved and I wanted him there for support ans coz half his baby as well

Saying all that

Why is he working from home constant abs not going to office /work sites

He doesn’t sound like he is doing his job but don’t think you can blame ivf

Mine was “involved” without being at all the appointments.

I think the IVF itself is irrelevant really in this situation. As you say, you aren’t his employer so really do you need to/should you know his personal business.

Personally I’d focus on the specific work issues. If he’s not fulfilling his contract then you need to work with him to see how that can be addressed, regardless of the issue.

@Hankunamatata

I think you need to forget a about his personal situation and feed back to he company that the service you are paying for isn't being provided, mistakes are not being picked up and your deeply unimpressed with service. It's their job to sort it out. If he cant do his job he either needs to job share or take time off.

This. If he is employed then the organisation employing him should cover his work or communicate with you if there are issues around getting the agreed work completed.

YABU for bringing IVF into this. This is not about IVF, it doesn't matter what his excuse is. You are paying for a service and it's not being delivered. That's the issue you should be addressing. You are trying to present yourself like a tough business woman but by bringing personal judgment into it you are making this too personal. Even if he is using IVF as an excuse, that's not what you should focus on.

I had ICSI and apart from the initial consultation, the egg harvesting and embryo transfer I went to all my appointments alone. DH had his own appointment for sperm retrieval which I had to drive him home from but it would have been madness to drag him away from work for every single appointment, especially in the days leading up to egg harvesting when I went in frequently.

YANBU OP. People need a bit of resilience in life.

The agency needs to get in cover, then. Either they provide the services you require, or you go elsewhere. If they’re allowing him to go to all the appointments, they need to provide someone to step in and cover the visits etc. The agency are the ones you need to take this up with, not the bloke, but again, I’d be horrified as his wife to think he’d shared the details of why he is absent.

YABVU with regards to the IVF treatment, and it's nothing to do with the emotional support aspect. Depending on what their issue is, he may need something like TESE/surgical sperm extraction which is a much bigger deal for the man and does have significant downtime. Also, the man does need to attend for bloods to be taken before the cycle is allowed to start. My clinic wanted both me and my husband to self-isolate for two weeks before egg retrieval, aka 'the bit with the cup', so it sounds as if that may be why he is not doing site visits. If he caught COVID during a site visit, they would be out thousands of pounds and have an entire cycle's worth of drugs wasted (also, if he were to pass it on asymptomatically to staff at the clinic, there could be the disastrous outcome of potentially dozens of patients getting their cycles cancelled - they're not fucking about for funsies).

However, YANBU in terms of expecting work to be done that is not being carried out - it sounds as if there has been a breakdown in communication with the agency and that's the bit that needs sorting.

I don’t think there’s any legal obligation to let him have time off but that’s for the agency to decide. They need to provide the service paid for and no way should you settle for less. It sounds like you’re getting very little out of the contract, surely he should still be working the majority of the time

I think by mentioning the IVF he has managed, probably inadvertently, to confuse the issue in your mind.

You or your employer are the client and you have a contractual relationship with the agency to provide certain services. The scope of the services and the expected standards are presumably set out somewhere (such as numbers of site visits, whether the agency staff are obliged to work in person in your office etc). If the agency doesn’t perform those contractual obligations you have a claim again them which you should pursue in the first instance as a complaint.

Entirely separately this chap has an employment relationship with the agency. He may well be entitled to adjustments or leave or whatever from them. He may have no such entitlement and they may have decided because they wish to be a good employer to let him have time off. That’s between him and the agency. It has nothing to do with you.

Where the agency has fallen down is that the arrangement they have reached with their employee has no bearing on the services that they continue to be obliged to provide to you. They are still obliged to provide those services and if they can’t do so via him they have to do so by some other means. Let’s say the obligation is to visit site A once a week. They can’t just say, oh well our employee can’t do that for health reasons therefore we won’t do it for TheOccupier’s company. They have to clear it with you which it seems they haven’t done.

So take it up with the agency and tell them to provide what they have contracted to provide.

The employee may well not realise the agency has not had this conversation with you and so he has told you he is going through IVF when he realised you didn’t know the background. He may also not draw much of a distinction between you and his employer because on the ground as far as he is concerned he is working at your office. Seems reasonable enough, but it’s confused the issue.

So he's a sub-contractor and he's not fulfilling the role your business requires?

@TheOccupier

How did it go today with the agency director? Did you find a solution?

My DH and I worked on the basis that he came to every appointment that could bring bad news so we could support each other.

Massive projection going on on this thread

Also, still trying to get over @Lily2075’s assertion that ivf treatment is ‘just as much the man’s treatment as the woman’s’

My Dh came to every single appointment. I was terrified and incredibly anxious. We found the process so hard we needed counselling which we had at the clinic. He did all the injections so needed to be there each time anyway to get all the info, considering the money we were spending it was crucial as part of the decision making process. His fertility was investigated too.

It’s hideous to go through. I became v ill and ended up in HD after contracting OHSS. If my Dh hadn’t been so involved at the clinic he wouldn’t have identified it and got me to hospital so quick.

@Bitconfusedhmm I don’t think there is any projection going on on this thread. Op literally started a thread saying the man doesn’t need to go to ivf appointments and how she knows single women who got in with it by themselves. Obviously women who need their husbands support or women whose husbands have male factor or those who are currently doing ivf and understand the high cost of catching covid mid cycle are going to respond. There is already so little support for women/men dealing with what is a medical issue and understanding op ignorance of what ivf entails means people are replying to her.

@XjustagirlX

Having read your update about him specifically stating ivf means he isn’t going to client sites. That implies to me that he is staying away due to COVID. Imagine going through ivf to be told it’s cancelled as he caught COVID at a client site! It’s just not worth the risk.

Yes. I had 3 x ivf around 20 years ago. During x2, my H caught the herpes cold sore virus & reacted really badly( literally hundreds of lesions on his face, bedridden, lost 1 stone in a week). It meant he produced NO sperm for the cycle we'd already started & we could not afford another. Rare, but IVF can have many more complications & ramifications than you could ever possibly imagine until you are 'in it'. (I also got OHSS).

That said, the Company supplying his services need to ensure another worker can fulfil their to you obligations during this time (which could be ongoing). They have a contract with you they are not fulfilling.

Agree with @housemaus completely!!

You need to address the issue with the agency and manage his performance via the appropriate channels but his reason for absence shouldn't be an influencing factor here.

I had my husband at every appointment, and to be honest I'd have struggled to get through it without him.

The simple fact is, his agency agreed to his request (which is a totally acceptable one!) so your issue really is with them.

People go through things in life which are difficult to deal with. And whilst physically the impact here is on women, you shouldn't underestimate the mental impact this can have on men. Going through it can be difficult for both involved, not just women. Would you be saying the same thing if his reason for absence/poor performance was a result of a close family bereavement?
Whilst they're both different scenarios, both take a mental toll.

My advice would be take it up with the agency and find a compromise that's meets as much of your needs as possible for your business, but also the needs of your colleague which shows support. If like you say, he'd be difficult to replace then you'd be cutting your nose off to spite your face as he won't be going through the IVF journey forever and when it's over, he'll remember how you treated him. You may need to make a temporary adjustment.

And finally, get yourself some training on compassion and maybe do some research on what's involved with the IVF journey and how difficult it is.