Working through it: Fertility Challenges

Creating safe spaces for employees navigating fertility and parenthood

Mental health in the workplace is a relatively common topic of focus within organisations today, yet specific life-stages where mental health issues can become more stigmatised are still often hidden. Life is complex, with varying challenges that can present at different times throughout your work-life, with experiences such as reproductive health issues, pregnancy loss, becoming a parent, parenting, menopause, divorce and caring responsibilities. All of these are times where mental health can be significantly impacted, and yet recognition and tailored support for specific challenges are so often lacking.

Seeing both sides: my career in HR and journey to parenthood

I write this blog from the perspective of someone who struggled for a long time to become a mum. I never realised how much going through fertility struggles could impact you at work, until I went through it myself.

Working as a HR professional for over 12 years, I’d processed many requests for maternity and parental leave, but I never had anyone ask me for adjustments or support while they went through fertility treatment. If someone had asked, I probably would have relied on ‘manager’s discretion’, not recognising the need for a clearer policy or understanding the mental health impact, particularly in relation to work.

I’ve since found that silence on this topic during my time in HR certainly wasn’t because I was the only person to experience it. The silence stemmed from stigma surrounding this ‘taboo’ topic, lack of recognition within organisations, and the many fears that individuals facing this can have. The same can be said for maternal mental health issues where, just like those experiencing fertility challenges, individuals can feel intensely vulnerable in themselves and their career.

Being a mum was the one role in life I was certain of. My career was very important to me, but I simply assumed that building our family would fit around this when the time felt right. As I turned 28, I had the shock realisation that this was far from guaranteed, after a diagnosis of Premature Ovarian Insufficiency (early menopause) and the prospect of never becoming a mum gave a newfound sense of urgency and perspective. I endured five unsuccessful cycles of IVF in close succession, including a devastating miscarriage. Eventually, we had to consider a whole new path to parenthood using egg donation, one that finally enabled me to become a mum of three.

Working through fertility treatment and the mental health toll

Working throughout this time was far from easy. Being an open person and not wanting to carry the additional burden of keeping my treatment a secret, I decided to tell my manager, something I know many don’t feel comfortable enough to do. Being able to be flexible in managing my own diary, something not everybody is lucky enough to be able to do, took away some of the stress of trying to juggle my workload with the time-off required for the many appointments.

Even so, the impact to my mental health was significant. Balancing the demands, pressures and emotions relating to fertility treatment almost felt like another full-time job. I went from being outgoing and confident building relationships to feeling emotionally exhausted, plastering a smile on my face, and wondering how I was going to get through each day, especially if another maternity leave collection and card landed on my desk.

On the surface, it appeared that everything was OK, but I was silently grieving. The strain became so much that I was signed off work with stress and anxiety for the first time in my career, I considered taking a career break, and eventually agreed a sideways move out of the succession pipeline into a less demanding role, four days a week. I felt like I was failing at everything, both as a woman who couldn’t have a baby, and in my career too.

We made the decision to pursue egg donation, which meant coming to terms with a different path to parenthood than we had imagined. When I finally became pregnant with my daughter, Mila, I naively expected that everything would return to how it once was. But although I was delighted and grateful that I was having my longed-for baby, the aftermath of such a traumatic path to parenthood stayed with me and had a lasting effect on my feelings towards work once I returned from maternity leave. Ultimately, after having my twins through egg donation and becoming a mum to three children under two, I decided to leave employment and take a career break.

What workplaces can do: from policy to culture

It’s important for organisations to join up the dots and understand that perinatal mental health issues can originate much earlier during a challenging fertility journey, and have a lasting impact.

I’m now self-employed and have created a career which fills the gaps in support that I felt on my own journey to parenthood. I now support people going through donor conception with my platform, Paths to Parenthub, and co-founded Fertility Matters at Work to raise awareness and provide training to workplaces on how to support employees with family-building challenges.

Much of what I’ve learned about supporting fertility journeys in the workplace is applicable to maternal mental health, with many of these experiences for employees involving difficult experiences in conception, pregnancy and post birth. These struggles are invisible in the workplace, hidden by taboo and stigma, lacking in awareness and education about the mental health impact and, importantly, how to provide support. Workplace culture is vital, these challenges can’t be addressed simply with a ‘tick-box’ policy. Change must come with engagement and robust education to inform and empower senior leaders.

When we started talking about fertility in the workplace, many said that it wasn’t relevant or even needed, because employees weren’t talking about it… the reason why employees weren’t talking about it was because they didn’t feel safe or see any recognition from their workplace! We need to close this gap – to signal recognition, put policies and practices in place to provide a foundation of support, raise awareness more widely about the mental health impact, educate and empower managers to hold compassionate conversations, nurture peer support networks and join up the dots with existing psychological support through EAPs and Occupational Health.

Final thought: how to close the gap

Employees should be able to bring their whole selves to work; it’s vital that organisations are aware of the many different challenges that women in particular (but not exclusively) face during their reproductive lifecycle and the complexities this can bring.

It’s through putting this support in place that organisations will start to see benefits in terms of engagement, talent attraction and retention – particularly in relation to these key moments where women often feel vulnerable, left behind or forced out of the workplace.