How much do I tell work about IVF treatment?

[BeckiF]

Hi Ladies - just wanted to ask what you think I should do regarding telling my employers about going for IVF? Should I be up front or do I risk being ousted out? I would rather tell them as it would be less stressful as I am a bad liar.

Everyone's different Beckif. I told my employers but that's just me and I kind of needed/wanted, though haven't always got, extra support. It is quite tough with the drugs etc but like I say, everyone is different. My late DH worked for the same company as me and was well thought of, had been there for nearly 30 years, i've been there 15 so lots of people were/are interested. Sorry, got carried away. Do what you feel, I personally don't think there's a right or wrong in this situation but suppose it depends on the company you work for. Good luck

I told my boss once I had moved on to IVF, but not during the original rounds of treatment pre-IVF. I believe that I was held in high regard, and my boss(es) were very supportive. But I think that it depends on the boss, and your relationship with them, plus how dependent you are on them. So for example I was happy to go part-tiome or even give up work if that was necessary for us to have a family, so could have walked away from my company if unsupportive. My employer switched my job at fairly short notice, gave me a part-time role (and a promotion), and has since been very flexible about me returning to work. Not all employers are the same, though the practice seems to be spreading (I'm being lunched by E&Y partners in the next month or so for them to learn more about how it all can work).

There are just too many random appointments with IVF IMO for you not to be able to tell them.

I told my immediate boss and she didnt tell anybody else, or if she did they didnt say anything to me. This worked really well as I needed lots of blood tests and appointment at funny times, would have been a nightmare to go for all these appointments and to keep it a secret.

We've done lots of the preliminary tests and are just going straight to ICSI, so thats the appt. for drugs, then the scans then the egg retrieval and implantation. I feel I should tell my immediate boss who happens to be on of the directors at the same time as the MD and my other day-to-day manager. I'm still not sure ....

How else are you going to manage the random absences? It didn't help me that my hospital at the start of treatment was an hour away from work, and that many of my scans were booked for lunchtime (helpful if you work locally...). For me the biggest pain was not knowing exactly when retrieval would be (as this takes up most of a day) - I ended up slightly overstimulated each cycle and having to wait an extra 4 or 5 days before retrieval.

Are you administering your own drugs?

We will be doing our own jabs yes. And it is the time for scans etc that would bother me. I'm sure they couldn't give me grief for this sort of thing (one would hopw anyway).

I guess it depends on what you do. I was a manager, and tended to have lots of external meetings, so it was better for my bosses to be aware as I often couldn't predict when I would be absent at short notice.

Hi There,

I didn't tell my bosses. I just felt if it didn't work then I would be really upset if they happened to ask how was I etc. Few people knew we were going for IVF, it was just the way I am. I am a quite a private person. I just took holidays etc when going through treatment. We had a 4 hour train journey to get to the hospital so it was difficult not telling but we got there in the end. We had 3 failed attempts but got our ds on 1st attempt with frozen eggs. We too had ICSI. Wishing you all the best. Tell your bosses if you think it will help you.

Lorne

Hi
I didn't tell my boss the first few attempts, my dh gave me the injections and we just took holiday over the main week of the retreival and implantation. But I found as the attempts wore on I was more emotional at work things like telling fibs about where I was got more difficult. Pros were = as I was thought of in high regard the MD said take as much time off as you want sick etc, take workload off and were fantastic, cons were = somewhere there was a leak in confidentiality and I had an office of 40 knowing what was going on and when I walked in from the implantation all looking at me trying to work out if I was pg. (lots of people think you are automatically pg). Fortunately, I was pg with my twins but had it not worked it would have been extra hard to cope with everyone gossiping. So utmost confidentiality is key. Good luck. xxx

I'm with lorne, I didn't tell my employers. I managed the absences in a number of ways, by 'inventing' an issue with a relative's estate that needed a number of visits to a solicitor, docs appt., dentist appt. and holiday. It probably also helped in that I don't have what I would call friends at work - they're most definitely 'colleagues', so nobody asked any questions.

The main reason I didn't tell my employers was that I felt I would need to keep them updated of any progress (or not) and also I knew they would 'park' my career as they wouldn't want to add to my stress. I just didn't want that.

We were lucky in that after 2 attempts, (1 IVF and 1 ICSI) we were successful so not a case of endless appts.

Good luck, whatever you choose to do.

becki, i was wondering how you werre doing. so treatment starts soon?

I too am undecided! About to start meds on Monday...
I'm a manager and all the females in work know what's going on. My boss (director of the company) is a bloke and I would find it awkward saying to him face to face, but I feel like I should put something in writing to him incase it came to a case of being felt like I was being pushed out, because he was pre-emoting maternity leave!!