Time off work for IVF

[KatRee]

Looking for advice from anyone who's been there. Within the last 2 weeks I've had private fertility investigations which have revealed that my right tube is blocked, and my ovarian reserve is low (at least in my left unblocked ovary) I'm 37 and the fertility consultant I saw advised is to move to IVF ASAP.
The next few months at my job will be the busiest and most important of the year and I'm wondering if it's possible to balance work with such an intense treatment, given the likely emotional and physical effects (the physical ones I'm not even familiar with and expect they vary for everyone, but I know emotionally I'm going to struggle). Work stress also tends to get to me at the best of times. What do people usually do about work when going through this? Do you need time off beyond the appointments? I'm very fortunate in that my clinic is walking distance from my home and I will be WFH until at least September.
I am still a bit shell shocked and overwhelmed by my diagnosis and would welcome any insights

I have a challenging pressured job but I did 5 rounds of ivf without taking leave from work - to be honest being busy helped take my mind off it . I also chose a clinic close to home so I could work from hone if needed around appointments

I worked throughout our cycle (NHS, highly demanding role, pandemic!) and found it fine. My clinic was a 3.5 hour round trip and I wasn't WFH so harder to balance than your situation. Be aware you will have a lot of appointments (every couple of days while you're being stimulated), but most of them are pretty quick (scans once you've started stims). If your work hours can be a bit flexible it's probably very do-able. You will need at least one full day off for egg collection and some people need a bit of time off after it depending on how they feel. I was lucky and felt fine the following day so went back to work. Embryo transfer is very quick, no need for a full day off for that if you don't want to.

That said, I think it is a very individual decision as there is the emotional side to consider as well. I was happy to keep busy and found work a good distraction but others will have had different experiences I'm sure. Physically the stims didn't affect me much at all (and I was on a v high dose), and I was lucky with egg collection as I said. Again, different people have different experiences though. All in all, you know your own limits and if you think you can manage I would go for it. I personally felt better once I knew we were doing something to try and help our situation, even though it came with the inevitable emotional stress.

I really feel for you, it’s such a hard thing to anticipate before you’ve done it. I was in a similar situation in that work can be very stressful and there is no let up. It’s not like you can go to work and have an easy day!

My job involves a lot of close contact so I spoke to my boss and arranged working from home from the start of stimulation. A big thing that contributed to my decision was that we only get one free nhs round and we were told at our consent appointment that once we’d started the medication, if we had to isolate because of being in contact with someone who had tested positive for COVID then our treatment would be cancelled and we would have to pay.

I’m really glad in the end that I was working from home as I ended up with ohss, which was mild but I was in a lot of discomfort leading up to egg collection and afterwards for at least a week.

I was pleasantly surprised that my mood wasn’t more affected by the hormones but everyone is different and some people have a harder time than others. What I would say is that on days where I had a scan appointment where the news wasn’t what we’d hoped for (we had to have a freeze all) I felt really emotional afterwards and wasn’t in the frame of mind to return to work.

Is there an option for you to work from home but to let your line manager or HR know that you will need a reduced workload?

I think the fact you're work from home and live near the clinic is ideal! I'm a secondary teacher and it's a bloody nightmare trying to fit appointments in. I've recently started a frozen transfer round (embryo number 5 going in hopefully) now and petrified I'll be told I have to isolate if one of my pupils gets covid. I had mild ohss last egg collection round but had to carry on teaching feeling so sore and emotional (had to freeze all instead of putting one in then) pretending to be fine in front of my classes. My point is you should take advantage of the work from home window that you have during the pandemic. It's the logistics that I personally find the most stressful.

I also worked through all of my rounds of ivf. You just need the flex to be able to go the clinics for appointments, so it depends how much control you have over your diary or if you are comfortable speaking to your boss, I think.

I didn’t find I needed any time for physical reasons other than the day of egg collection each time.

I think being off work would have been worse for me, too much time to worry.

Thank you all so much for taking the time to respond. I feel so much more informed hearing from real people about your experiences
I do think I am in a very fortunate position with work and think my manager will be understanding and let me work flexibly around appointments and I have quite a lot of annual leave to play around with too if needs be. I just have the bad habit of putting too much pressure on myself over work. I did hours and hours of unpaid overtime over the summer last year and feel guilty at the prospect of leaving my team without support. I have to keep reminding myself that it's really not anywhere near as stressful as many people's jobs - certainly no life and death scenarios going on and I'm completely in awe of everyone working in the NHS, in schools and in other crucial and high-pressure roles.
Thanks again to you all- I really hope those of you still on the journey get good news soon xx