Thinking about giving up my job can't get pregnant

[Yorkshirelass2016]

Hi advice would be appreciated, I have a high stress job working in senior management and have had similar roles for the past 6 years. During that time I have had 2 miscarriages and always thought stress may be a factor, now I'm 37 and in another 6 months 38. When I had previous miscarriages I put it down to one of those things, but since then I have developed other conditions that maybe stress related. I don't want to neccessarily give up my job because we have a good life with my partner. However I really want to have a baby and I'm struggling to have it all. I know the independent woman inside me is probably screaming that I should keep fighting for it, but I don't want to regret not taking a step back and not having a baby. I would regret that more then anything. The worry of work related stress is always there because I fly from one high pressure issue to another which is the demand of my job. I know what I want to do but I'm scared I'm making a bad decision and worried what people will think I suppose. I have tried to work for other companies to see if the experience was any better and I fast learned it wasn't, it's just the nature of the beast and territory I'm going into. I guess your priorities change as you get older and in the past my career and earning money was more important then it is now. My partner is being supportive and saying it's my decision, but I don't want to let him down by making this choice and then I may not get pregnant anyway. I could really do with some advice from anyone in or has been in a similar situation :)

Hi,

I'm not in exactly the same boat but not a million miles away. Like you until recently I had a senior role in a very large company. I've held similar roles for a few years. It took us over 3 years to finally conceive our DD who is now 2 and I became convinced that stress was playing a part in my inability to conceive.

I went back to work when my DD was 1. Initially I tried to do 3 days a week but very quickly had to increase it to 4 days which was ok as still had a bit of balance....but I felt like I did nothing well. During 2016 I fell pregnant twice - much quicker than I thought I would given our history. During the first pregnancy I had an extremely stressful day at work (I even ended up in tears which is not like me). I found out two weeks later that my baby had died and when they dated me the baby had died on that very stressful day. It could be a coincidence of course. The second pregnancy last year I had to terminate for medical reasons - nothing work related just an awfully cruel twist of Mother Nature.

After losing our little girl due to the termination I decided I wanted to take some time out so took voluntary redundancy. My plan was to spend time with my dd whilst trying to get pregnant. The only issue now is that I am missing the work side of my life - not the actual job I was doing but the challenge of being at work. I am also becoming obsessed with getting pregnant which isn't helpful.

So I'm now thinking I might do some contract work to tide me over for the time being.

I'm not sure my story helps at all but I think if I were you I might consider taking some time out in case it does make a difference. Does your company support career breaks or periods of extended leave? Might be worth considering if you don't want to completely cut ties? X

Your story is actually very similar to mine.. we had a true miscarriage for the first loss about 2.5 years ago and then just over a year ago I had to have a medical miscarriage also following first scan so was very upsetting time and difficult experience to get over. I agonised over the fact I had had to take termination tablets for a baby that was so loved, but had to accept the baby had already died there was nothing anyone could do. We didn't start trying again till last summer and been trying ever since. Sadly I haven't been able to get pregnant since then. I dont really want to give up work but I don't really see anyway forward other then to do that. I'm also worried because of my age that coupled with a stressful job isn't the best combination to get pregnant. It does help someone out there has similar worries and issues, hopefully I can get some strength from that. I guess I just have to get on and do what's right for me. Thanks for sharing

This is a really tough choice isn't it. I too have a senior job in the city and it's high pressure, and I love it and worked my socks off to get to where I am but we are struggling to conceive #2 and it's making me question everything.

I think the advice to take a break as opposed to resigning is good as it gives you the option to go back if you find it's really not for you. I loved my maternity leave, but I missed working and I'm glad I went back. Juggling a child and full time job is tough but it works for us. you may take to a change of pace like a duck to water, you just never know!

Hi all and hello again Cola,
I can definitely empathise with this as I was in this position last year. I was the sales manager for a fashion company so had worked very hard to get to that position in an industry that is notoriously competitive and cutthroat.
I absolutely loved my job but got to the point where I just didn't feel that I would conceive if I carried on working in the same job. My boss was divorced and the other director who was a woman had grown up children and wasn't particularly concerned about home life so for them, work was their whole life and as I became their right hand woman, it became mine as well.

Both me and my husband were doing a lot of travelling for work on top of living stressful busy lives with our jobs and after much soul searching, I gave it all up at the end of August last year.
I am now in the very fortunate position that I am 8 weeks pregnant so it has taken me 16 months in all and for 11 of those months I was still in my job. Whether or not that has actually made the difference, I obviously can't say but I definitely felt a lot happier without all of the pressure and stress and it gave me time to just focus on myself, going to the gym, taking up yoga, cooking healthily, spending more time with friends etc that I was always rushing around like a loony trying to fit in. Plus me and my husband only had one month where we missed the 'good' time so to speak whereas before it would happen all the time because of our busy schedules.
However, it was a very very hard decision to make and I did struggle with it and often felt like I was just sitting around waiting to get pregnant which brings a whole host of other problems. I tried to be quite honest but without going into detail so told colleagues and people in my industry that I was taking some time out and that I wanted to start a family at some point. Naturally then you feel like everyone is just waiting for you to pregnant and as the months went by, I started to feel pretty rubbish about the whole thing and as though it was a big mistake and perhaps I should have stayed in my job after all. People would also ask me how long I was going to give it which is also tough as you just don't know when it's going to happen. Before Christmas I got very down about it as I just felt like I had given up on my old life and it zapped my confidence. When I met up with friends, I felt like I didn't really have anything to contribute because I'd just been mooching about really whereas before I would've been telling them about my latest work trip or meeting with the head of blah blah and didn't really have a second to contemplate getting bored. Now I was being faced with questions like 'so what do you do all day' which makes you feel pretty crap. Also, most of my friends who I was hanging out with were pregnant or stay at home mums as obviously most people work so sometimes that felt quite hard as well.
Some people also I think get a bit jealous if you can financially afford to take a break from your career as it's quite rare these days to be in that position so people did make snipey comments as well like 'oh that's great if you can afford it.' Other people tried to scare me that I would be forgotten and wouldn't ever be able to go back to that industry but I still talk to my work friends all the time and lots of other people from the industry still contact me and I've been approached a few times about job opportunities so obviously that's not true.

I decided in January that I would start my own online/instagram clothing site and that gave me back a bit of my old self and the passion that I used to get from my work and as clichéd as it sounds, that's when it then happened for us finally. I could never have scaled back at work or opted out of the travelling as it just wouldn't have been an option and I didn't want to go off and find another job really as it would've been for the sake of it so I needed to make that drastic change.

I now obviously feel like it paid off and I'm also so pleased that I'm not having to travel whilst pregnant as I feel rubbish and it would've been awful having to go so far away from home feeling crap. I was also so busy constantly there that I would've stressed about having any time off for appointments (when I had a mc, I still went into work as I had meetings that I felt I had to be there for.) We had been talking to our consultant about having IVF if we didn't fall naturally soon and again, I just wouldn't have been to able to go through that whilst working in my old job.

If you can scale back or discuss a less demanding role, then I would absolutely go for it. I feel like I definitely made the right decision by giving it all up completely but just wanted to explain exactly how I found the experience. Hope that helps xx

Hi. Just to supply a bit of balance, in true medical terms no miscarriage is likely to be caused by stress. The most common reason for an early miscarriage (so I understand) are chromosome issues, low progesterone or a clotting disorder.

Before you make any major life changing decisions it might be worth having some fertility investigations (you may not get this on the nhs until you've had 3 miscarriages) and rule out any medical reason.

Also I fully understand that the stress feels worrying when ttc so have you considered anything like reflexology, acupuncture or cranial sacral treatment to help with this? Not medically proven of course but anecdotally lots of people find it helpful.

Good luck whatever you decide and with ttc