IVF and time off work?

[porridgewithblueberries]

Hi everyone. I'm in the very early stages of this journey - it might sound daft but I have made the 'big' decisions so what is left is the little ones, especially exactly when to have treatment and I wondered if you could tell me if you had/felt you needed much/any time off work? My clinic is about an hour away :) x

I have an office job and can pretty much come and go as I please, as long as I clock up a certain number of billable hours per day. This is what I did.

For scans and blood tests, I just stepped out for an hour or so (I was about half an hour from my clinic when at work). I didn't make a big deal of it and just treated it as an early/late lunch. No one seemed to notice.

EC was a bit tricky as you only get a few days' notice of the precise timing usually (although you will generally have a rough idea further out). I told work I was having a medical procedure under sedation and would need the day off. It ended up being on the day a load of bigwigs from our US office were in town. Not ideal, but everyone just accepted I was off on sick leave for this unspecified medical procedure. I had natural IVF (so no swollen ovaries and hardly any pain from EC as they were not collecting multiple eggs). I was fine to be back at my desk the next day (although mentally, I was not really present!).

I had ET in my lunch hour but as they kept me waiting for an hour(!) it ended up being about a 3hr lunch by the time I had got there, waited, had the ET, stayed still for 20 minutes and then got back. I told folks I had a dr's appt to follow up from the earlier procedure (all true but without going into the specifics).

I ended up having to take various half days off work - I think I used a combination of A/L and allowed time for medical appointments.
The consultant told me I would be OK to return to work the day after EC, but in the end I had a fairly mild case of OHSS which was incredibly painful and meant I had to have the rest of the week off work sick. I wish someone had warned me so I could have planned my workload better.
Eggs were returned on day 5, which was a Saturday, and I was back at work the following Monday.

Thank you! :) Am a teacher, so quite restricted in the time off I can actually have (I know I get great holidays though, but teaching just isn't very flexible unfortunately!) x

I told my boss but we are quite a small team and I've worked for him for over 5 years - he has been brilliant. My EC was looking likely to fall on either a Friday or Monsay and I knew I'd have day 2 transfer so I asked for short notice leave Fri - Weds. It failed dreadfully and i was decastated as it felt like my TTC was over [it still might be but we are trying IUI] and I was able to ask for the Thurs & Fri off as well, which was not only granted but my boss told me last week he has put them through as compassionate leave

I haven't gone into details re IUI but I have told him I'm going to have some low level meds and occasional scans over the next few months with the odd half day at fairly short notice and he has [again] been fab.

I work in a pretty high pressure sales job, but so long as he knows I'm on top of my workload he is happy.

I guess ultimately it depends on your boss and the relationship you have!

Depending on when your cycles fall, you should be able to fit most of your treatment into the summer holiday - but that depends on how flexible your clinic is. I think my appointments lasted about 2 months from starting the cycle to finally getting signed off and sent off to the NHS midwives to look after my pregnancy.
The problem is that the appointments tend to be planned week by week, depending on how your body reacts to the protocol you are following, so you might be having time off at quite short notice.
Good luck.

Pip - I'd like to, but unfortunately it isn't going to be this summer, and I really really don't want to wait until summer 2014, for my first go at any rate. Thanks, though. I am hoping for some time between November 2013 - March 2014 for first attempt. Christmas would be ideal in some ways but I don't know what the opening times will be like 'Tis difficult!

That's a shame, but I'm sure that once you talk it through with your clinic it will make a lot more sense. I had so many questions about the logistics of it all, but the clinic were great and guiding me every step of the way.
I also used the Fertility Friends website, most of the clinics have their own forums so you might find other people who can answer questions about how your specific clinic works around things like Christmas.

I'm a faculty head and a member oft faculty had (successful :o ) ivf last year - she was upfront with me and smt about it, in return we allowed her any time off she needed without question.

Pottering, I am a faculty head too (well head of department, we don't have fancy faculties at our place ) and I am sure SLT would let me have the time. However, I feel a little uncomfortable with telling them what I am doing, so I'd rather just work around it IF that is possible of course (it may not be.)

Pip thanks :) the clinic do seem really nice and helpful so far. Am on fertility friends as well but haven't posted loads yet!