Why starting a conversation with your employer about fertility shouldn’t be ‘hard work’

Recurrent pregnancy loss is a grief that few employers understand, however Kelly says that having a ‘safe space’ to talk would have helped her stay in her job. 

Kelly was one of the first to have NHS IVF treatment at Bourn Hall when it was reinstated by the regional health authority. In her campaigning she met many others struggling with infertility. 

“Infertility is a medical condition and people forget that,” she says. “You don’t choose it. It causes no end of stress, it can boggle your brain.” 

1 in 6 people have difficulties conceiving and Kelly thinks there are many ways that employers can be ‘fertility friendly’ and remove the ‘manager lottery’. 

“Many people having fertility treatment are made to feel as though they are a ‘full on’ inconvenience to their work unless someone higher up in the company has been through it and is more sympathetic,” she says. 

“There are simple things that employers can do such as allowing time off for an appointment and encouraging people with new babies to give a heads-up before they come in.” 

To create awareness of how to support work colleagues cope with the stress of infertility, Bourn Hall has partnered with Fertility in The Workplace (delivered by Fertility Network UK). This initiative is part funded through the government’s Women’s Health Strategy and aims to provide practical advice and training for SMEs to help them retain their staff by helping them navigate the challenges of work and treatment. 

Inclusion of fertility within policies and enabling flexibility to attend appointments would make an immediate improvement and reduce stress for employees.  

“Any awareness that can be raised amongst employers is a good thing,” says Kelly. “And it is being supportive of the logistics so for example a woman cannot drive for 24 hours after egg collection and shouldn’t be left on their own so it is factoring that in that they wouldn’t be able to drive to their office the next day and that their partner might need to work from home or be off work to be with them.” 

Kelly felt so pressured to prioritise work over her recovery from her third loss that ultimately, she took the drastic step to resign before embarking on IVF. 

“I thought there is no way I can go through IVF feeling this level of pressure from work,” she says. “We were entitled to one NHS-funded round, we had got this one chance and I needed to focus on getting as many eggs and embryos as we could, so in the end me and my husband just agreed to ‘take the hit’ financially and I quit my job.  

“I was just so glad that the treatment was all I had to think about, not the fact that I ‘should’ be at work and whether my boss was going to ring me.” 

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