IVF and work

[KJ4017]

I'm about to start IVF treatment next week and all being well embyro transfer at the beginning of June - I have a pretty stressful job, and June is often a particularly busy, unpredictable and stressful month! My boss is very supportive thankfully, I'm very lucky about that, however my colleagues I work with on a daily basis - not very empathetic in general so I have not told them. My question is, should I take time off after embryo transfer (if it happens🙏), and should I tell my immediate colleagues???

I’d say yes to time off but whether you tell colleagues depends if you are ok with telling them if it’s unsuccessful. I personally wouldn’t. I had a miscarriage last year and only told my manager abd 1 colleague im friends with. And you shouldn’t need to use annual leave- ask if your work has a policy for IVF

You might want to ask this on the infertility board.

Personally I would go absolutely round the twist if I took time off after transfer, I need the distraction.

To be fair I told my colleagues and my first round got cancelled as they had to re- adjust the medication. So when they readjusted and scheduled again I kept quiet. So much easier. I worked through mine which helped as I did an early test which is silly as it was negative not realising I was actually pregnant. I had quite a stressful event occur at the time too and baby was fine.

No, don't

You will need to keep busy during those 2 weeks

I moved house. Not ideal but it deflected the stress elsewhere

ET is one appointment and takes about an hour so isn't a big time commitment. I had mine in lunch hours. Egg collection and the lead up to it usually involves multiple appointments and is a bigger procedure. Good luck.

For me the embryo transfer was the ‘easy’ bit in terms of its quick, no additional meds, no extra physical symptoms etc and I definitely needed the structure of work in the wait to test as a distraction (everyone’s different though!). I took the day off just as it was awkwardly timed with my working hours and I needed a bit of emotional breathing space, then was back at work as normal the next morning.

Where I most needed the time was around the egg collection as that was physically uncomfortable (the procedure itself and the huge ovaries) and as other posters have mentioned there’s a lot more appointments, scans etc around it to juggle. I think I took about a week/week and a half off around collection. I was right on the verge of hyperstimulation syndrome though so symptoms may have been more extreme! I also took the day of the pregnancy test off.

Best of luck!