Ive managed to have most appointments over MS Teams and booked blood tests and scans for first thing in the morning before work for the consultation, planning and stimulation part.
From memory:
Initial consultation was in person with a separate visit for an ultrasound scan + blood test.
Visited again for another blood test, husband also had to attend. Viral screen for both of us rather than monitoring me.
Scan on day 2 of cycle for stims start with nurse appointment in person to demonstrate injections
Scans and blood tests on days 9 & 11 to check follicles and lining + nurse appointment
Egg retrieval procedure on day 13 - husband also attended all day for sperm sample and also to keep an eye on me after sedation - you cannot be left alone for 24hrs, or drive.
Between all of those visits I also had 2 nurse appointments and 1 consultant meeting over MSteams.
The most disruptive time by far was egg retrieval as you do need the full day off - I had conscious sedation so wouldnt have been able to go back to work, even from
home.
That part is hard to predict the timing in advance as the clinic monitor your follicles via ultra sound from around day 9/10 then make a call on when to do the trigger shot , and egg retrieval follows 2 days later.
I was provided with rough estimates as ‘provisional’ appointments for every step, but they pretty much all shifted by a few days!
On the advice of some friends who had been through this already I booked 2 weeks off work that I thought would be egg retrieval week and embryo transfer week (usually 5 days after retrieval). It was still a close call though as I was originally told it would be a scan on the Monday and egg retrieval on the Wednesday, but ended up with stims being extended so had a repeat scan on the Wednesday with egg collection on the Friday. My transfer was then cancelled as they advised me to do a freeze all cycle, I decided to save my leave and go back to work. It was provisionally the Monday so I assume would have shifted to Wednesday had it gone ahead.
Its a difficult call to make for planning as there are a lot of unknowns until a scan to confirm next steps so be prepared to have to change things around last minute and potentially use some sick leave if that is an option, and you don't want to disclose to your employer.
I couldn’t think of any medical appointments that would move in such a way to use as a cover story! I was supposed to be on a client residential and it would have been really disruptive for my team and the client if I had called in sick on the day for the full week.
If you’re in the UK you have legal protection between embryo transfer and pregnancy test date, ‘PUPO - Pregnant until proven otherwise’. However if it were to fail, I am not sure it’s worth the long term impact as your employer would then know you were actively trying.
I did two medicated cycles without telling work, for the IVF one I told my line manager, due to the trip, she has been supportive to a point- but took me off another major project while I was on leave for the IVF procedure. A coincidence I am still struggling to get my head around, but on the fence whether to do anything about it as I’m preparing for frozen embryo transfer next month and not sure I want the added stress of dealing with a HR debacle. The client was a nightmare so I think she feels she is doing me a favour, which in a way she is, but career wise, it’s a set back.
Sorry for the ramble- Short summary- there are quite a few appointments but the first chunk you can probably book at a convenient time pending their availability. If I had my time again, I think I could have got away with it all by claiming some kind of dental thing for the late starts for initial appointments and making up the time and then unofficially warming up a colleague to cover for me on the residential with a solid handover prepped, then calling in sick for on egg retrieval day. Put yourself first, always.
Good luck!