How much time off work for IVF?

[Sadgirl28]

I am starting IVF and already stressing about how much time I need off , I will not be telling my work at all and I’ll try to work around it , I work 6-6 so no chance to visit doctor on these days unless I’m off , and I work 4 days on 4 off . So I am hoping that many appointments will fall on my 4 days off . I am planning to somehow take off a week for when I have to have scans for like a week , for few times a week . And then a week from EC to ET, because I know they could ring anytime from 2-5 days after egg collection fot ET . Is that a good plan ? Thank you for reading x

It really depends on your protocol of IVF - I did short protocol and natural modified IVF. Scans and blood tests were every other day during stimming - from around cycle day 4/5 - so probably 3-4 scans needed. Then I generally took the day of egg collection as annual leave.

I wouldn't bother taking a full week between EC and ET if your trying to minimise taking time off - your clinic will either do a day 3 (if things aren't going great) or day 5 (much more standard) - you could be lucky and this fall on a weekend (mine did most of the time 🤣)

@ivfgottwins hey so do you think I should take off maybe day 3 after ec and day 5 ? Do they not normally do it at day 2 or 4 or 6? I wouldn’t take all the time off if not necessarily but I’m more thinking that they might ring me for updates and if I’m at work then I can’t answer the phone , unless it possible to ring back ?

@ivfgottwins also I work weekends too so for me it’s always changing 😄 if I work Monday to Thursday then I have 4 days off , then next week I start Tuesday to Friday , if you know what I mean ?

@ivfgottwins just wondering have you had ivf yet and how was your outcome? And if you don’t mind asking how old are you when you had ivf

Hi @Sadgirl28 are half day holidays an option? Or how much notice do you need to give - it’s a shame to use holidays you either won’t need or when your scan appointments are so quick. I was lucky I was able to work around mine but took the day of EC off. Transfer fell on a Sunday. I was on shirt protocol first - and was on stuns for 15 days so had quite a few appointments for that one. Every other day from day 7 maybe. Long protocol for the next cycle and was similar - 15 days with lots of scans - some times every day. It’s just hard to predict as I stimmed longer than ‘normal’ so I know lots of people have much less appointments. You would be able to call back if you missed a call. For transfer day, I had to wait until that morning before I got a time to go in - but had a few days notice of when it would be to book it off.

Hey @Sadgirl28 at the moment I am planning just the day off for EC then I am going to ask for a few hours for ET and an hour on 2 or 3 days for scans. I work super long hours and cant take time off or let me work know I am doing this so I understand the stress. Good luck xx

They'll most likely leave a voicemail for you to call them but maybe you could ask them to email you the update? You will only get a day 1, day 3 and day 5 update (some clinics don't do day 3 updates)

most clinics don't do day 2 transfers and no one I know does day 4 either m. In fact lots don't do day 3 either anymore. Day 6 transfers have very low success rates - it's better they freeze the blastocyst on day 6 and then do a frozen transfer on what would be day 5 and then they have the same success rate

I did 5 rounds of IVF and had twins in January - I was 36 when I started and 37 when the twins were born x

I have done IVF at two different clinics. One did much less monitoring and told you in advance which days you'd need to attend, the other was more intense and they would decide when you next needed to go in based on that day's scan results (sometimes every other day) so depends on your clinic really.

I’ve just had my first ivf round a few weeks ago (have had to have a freeze all after egg collection)

I found the timeline was a lot less predictable than I had anticipated beforehand so if you can book your annual leave last minute you might be fine, but it might be hard to pinpoint the days you will need to go in to the clinic. So for example I was expecting to have my baseline scan on the Monday but it ended up being the Tuesday, then at my next monitoring scan they delayed my egg collection.

They advised me to have the day after egg collection off work. I ended up with mild ohss so was a bit wiped out for a fair few days afterwards. Luckily it fell in a holiday!

I took the day after egg collection off just to rest up, as I knew I'd be an OHSS risk due to high AFC and lots of follicles responding well during the scans.
I also took a week off after transfer but kind of wish I didn't do that because it just meant I spent that whole week non stop thinking about it and could have been done with the distraction!

Hi @Sadgirl28

I'd encourage you to tell your manager if you can.
I started stims last Monday and have had to have scans Mon, Wed and Fri of this week. EC thought to be early next week but will depend on what the scan shows.

Work have been great - they've let me work from home this week, which I requested as I was paranoid about getting a covid symptom and needing to self isolate then missing an important scan/EC.

Also - I've actually had to call in sick today as I feel so tired and uncomfortable, I really wouldn't be able to do my job properly. I feel a bit guilty about this but equally this is my first and only NHS funded cycle so I really want it to go as well as it can do - thankfully they get that.

Why have you decided not to tell work? It took me a while to do it, but in the end I decided too because I didn't want the additional stress of worrying about scheduling things around work etc. My manager has been really supportive, and she hasn't told anyone else - I don't mind people knowing, but I just don't really want to have to deal with the questions particularly if it doesn't work.

Best of luck with your cycle x