Juggling IF with Career

Steph1673 · May 2014

I'm curious how some of you juggle the stressful, time-consuming nature of IF treatments with your jobs outside of the home, if you have one.

I heard from my RE and I have to go in again to now discuss ovulation trigger meds and plan for IUI as our next option. Honestly it took me a while to even go to my OB and talk about seeing an RE since I work full time and time away from the office is not easy for me. Although I am the manager, I work in close quarters with a small staff (no privacy or door to close) and just thinking about getting away for more appointments, more monitoring, and then treatments which are time sensitive causes me anxiety... both leaving in general so often and raising red flags about my situation with my team. Also, I'm worried about taking medicine that can alter my mood or physical state, and still being high-functioning at work.

If you work outside the home, in a traditional 40+ hour week...

How do you handle the time away?

How much to do let your colleagues and/or supervisors know?

Does the emotional and/or physical toll of your meds/treatments effect your job?

I remember when my cousin was struggling with IF she ended up leaving her nursing job and I'm starting to understand why. That is just not an option for me as I have really built my career, would like to continue it and I contribute a significant income to our household (...and IF treatments are not cheap).

Just looking for either suggestions or to commiserate.

Frenchteachermama · May 2014

I am a high school French teacher, when we moved last summer I was lucky to find a part time teaching position so I can't speak to going through the IUI process with a 40 hour a week job, but I wanted to respond to you anyway. I have been through 2 IUI cycles with femara + ovidrel trigger shot and crinone progesterone 3 days past IUI. I haven't had any side effects except gaining a little bit of weight each cycle around trigger and IUI time. It hasn't altered my mood or given me headaches or any other symptoms. I have heard that sometimes the symptoms get worse the more cycles of a drug you try in a row but so far so good for me. My RE's office has been really great about helping me schedule very early morning appointments so I'm not late to work. You'll need to free up about 3-4 mornings for monitoring, CD 3, 10 (and then every day or every other day depending on how your follies look). The only appointment that you will have to take a morning off for is the morning of your IUI. Your DH will have to do the sample and then about an hour later is the IUI.

I wanted to keep everything very private but I did tell my colleague who is so nice and always willing to cover for me if my appts took too long. I think only once in the 2 cycles did I have to use and excuse like "my daughter was sick and I had to wait for the sitter to come", otherwise I was able to schedule appointments to fit my schedule. And the mornings of my IUIs I called in sick. If you feel comfortable I would let your supervisor know what you are going through and I would also call around to different RE practices and find out what time their earliest appointments of the day are. I sometimes went in at 6:30am for monitoring before anyone in my house was awake!!

You can make it happen! Don't forget women are the best!!

Momarazzi007 · May 2014

When we went through IVF w dd I had 40 hour work week plus 2-3 hours in traffic a day. Literally I was gone from 4:40am til almost 5 pm. I worked about near IVF place and since it was early morning monitoring (made sure I was the first person there and out) I could get some work done before I left and still return before people got in. It was not fun, very stressful, and a blur in retrospect! On transfer day I would go into work w/o make up and everyone was like- "you ok? (Lol, a little eyeshadow and lipgloss go a long way I guess!!!) You look different."I would start saying not feeling good and planting that seed then leave under guise of feeling sick and then no one knew and if I didn't make it in the next day no one was calling me in a panic. Good times. In November I was prek teacher and morning monitoring again early and I made it to school to set up before anyone got there. So early bird catches worm in morning monitoring world for me! Now I am SAHM and just grab dd, make her go potty and put her in car seat at 5:30am and we get there between 6:45 and 7am and back home by 9. I think I've been doing this too long- lol too many scenarios!!! Anyway, hope that helps a little.

tache · May 2014

It's hard! I have done the call in sick. But that gets hard when it's every month. I've might tell our president about everything because she is very open with the fact that all of her kids were ivf. But I don't really like sharing what we are doing

honestly in my opinion there is not an easy option. I've found that doing iui every other month can help so it's not every month but I know that's hard because you just want to keep going.

MrsAtch · May 2014

I'm an IT director at a small school. Prior to August I was a database administrator in a 75 person company. I work at least 45-50 hours a week, and used to work 60+. I've been pretty open about my infertility battle, but it's a social advocacy thing for me. I hate that infertility and loss are so hush-hush and people feel ashamed. I don't share with everyone, but the people that I work closely with know. I have had multiple rounds of surgery and at least a dozen appointments since I started my current job. I was pretty up front about my medical status when I took my new job, but I knew one of the guys I was going to be working for. He was very understanding and supportive. I know my situation is very fortunate, and I completely understand your concern. I have just found that giving basic information has worked in my favor.

sailorgal · May 2014

It's hard. I work for myself but I still have commitments. And if I don't work, I don't get paid. No sick or vacation days when you are self-employed and obviously money is needed to pay for all this stuff! I find the cycle monitoring to be a big time chunk and really stressful. They close at 8:30am but I have to drop my son off in another city, opposite to it. I usually make it with 2 minutes to spare and then don't get working until 10am. And by that time I'm tired, stressed and exhausted and not working as effectively. Plus my clients are in another time zone so it's later by the time I start for them. Anyways, it's rough, and just hopefully treatments will be short for you and result in your little bundle of joy.

Mommalawyer · June 2014

It is hard. My career, unfortunately, has had to take a back seat to IF. I'm a trial attorney and couldn't just call in because of last minute doctor appointments. So, I was forced into a non trial rotation, but kept a murder trial and two attempted murder trials that someone couldn't just take over on a whim. So I'm juggling those around IF. I'm not happy about the paperwork/in court all day rotation, but at least I still keep my job & can focus on IF. And getting case coverage is much easier with this rotation than trials. It pretty much puts my career and promotability on hault. But, I no longer work evenings or weekends, so that's nice.....

Steph1673 · June 2014

Thanks for everyone's responses. Just another barrier for women out there in the working world I guess! I meet with my RE on Tuesday to discuss a plan. Luckily he got me in at 8am so I should only miss an hour or so of work. We should have DH's SA result back by then and if that is normal, since I just found out my recent AMH and HSG are essentially normal in addition to all other testing we have done, we are pretty much expecting an unexplained Dx. I think that's why I'm having a hard time with this. If I KNEW something was wrong that I had to do 'XYZ' to fix I feel like I'd have and easier time setting my career on the back burner to move forward with treatments. For some reason this unexplained (so-far) diagnosis make me feel like I'm going to have to spend a lot of time away from the office on trial and error. I know it's still trial and error with a Dx but I just get anxious about treating something when we don't know what we are treating. All things I guess I can discuss with the RE...

Juggling IF with Career

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