u/LellowYeaf

I’d like some advice on my employer’s handling of my IVF treatment.

I recently asked for a temporary flexible work arrangement to work remotely for 2-3 weeks during IVF. My treatment is at a hospital near my home, 3 hours from my office in London.

I titled my email request “temporary flexible work”, and referred to the fact I was making such a request in the body of the email. Unknown to me, there is an official form to fill out which neither my manager nor HR directed me to.

Instead, I was informed I could use my annual 2 week “remote work” allowance. This is a benefit sold as being to extend holidays or spend time with family, not for medical procedures. When I pointed this out and asked whether the same policy applies if someone had a bad cold or broken limb, HR simply informed me that IVF is an elective procedure. Whilst technically true, I was astounded at their insensitivity.

I again challenged why it was acceptable for me to work remotely using my remote work allowance, but this arrangement couldn’t be accommodated as a temporary flexible work request. I was then told by the Head of HR there wasn’t enough time to approve the request, and that a temporary flexible work arrangement requires changes to my employment contract.

I was days from beginning IVF (the NHS gives pretty short notice), and decided it wasn’t worth the stress of pursuing the argument. So I’ve now used my 2 weeks remote work allowance for IVF treatment.

This still sits badly with me, and I think HR has skirted very close to direct or indirect sex discrimination.

Grateful for any advice on whether I can retrospectively challenge this decision, and how to best go about doing so.

Paying a monthly subscription where I can’t input IVF dates or data.

Ended up changing it to “tracking” rather than “trying to get pregnant”.

Just got a notification “Is your period 32 days late? Let’s talk about it”

NO FLO - I’m going through IVF and have no way of logging it in your app. And I’m not deleting your app because I’m still holding out hope I’ll have a use for it and return to change it to “pregnant”.

This isn’t a major thing to be salty about, I understand that anyone who hasn’t gone through IVF won’t know much about the process and will likely make ignorant comments. BUT it would be nice if people could ask more open questions to acknowledge their own lack of understanding. I do know that anyone not going through IVF won’t appreciate how sensitive every little comment can make me feel.

Comments I’ve had so far include:

“Will you want just one or two?” “Oh I don’t know, we’d be lucky just to have one child at this point.” “No I mean do you want them to give you twins?” “Ummmm that’s not really a thing anymore, multiple births are actively discouraged”.

“I suppose some of the mature eggs might not make it to Day 5?” “Ummm it’s pretty much a certainty not all mature eggs make it to Day 5, there is attrition at every stage between retrieval and Day 5. And sometimes, sadly, no Day 5 blasts at all”.

“It would be nice if we had children at the same time.” “Thanks, but my body isn’t really working to my own timetable right now, let alone anyone else’s”.

Feel free to share the ignorant comments and questions that make you salty!

We are due to buy my mum’s house from her, a nice place in the country that allows us to move out of the city. This is something we’ve discussed for the last couple of years, and have been clear we’ll need to sell our house to release equity in order to buy her place.

The UK housing market is in a real slump, and we cannot sell our house. We’re not looking to make crazy money on it, we just can’t sell at a loss.

Being unable to sell the house results in us being liable for second home stamp duty, the cost of two mortgages plus increased outgoings like landlords insurance. That’s all alongside anticipated increased outgoings because my mum’s home is larger than ours.

The increased costs are £40,000 stamp duty (vs £12,500 if it was our only home), and increased monthly outgoings of £2,500 a month (versus anticipated increased outgoings of £500 a month).

I’ve told my mum if we can’t sell our house, we can’t buy hers. She is pushing all sorts of ideas like reclaiming stamp duty if we sell our home within 3 years (which is a gamble).

I’ve told her we need to find time to sit down together and discuss a way forward (which may include selling her home on the open market), but I feel like she is in denial about the situation. I am just so stressed that she can’t accept we are now very unlikely to buy her home as ours isn’t selling, and feel like we’re approaching a huge horrible fallout.

For various reasons, it’s taken only 4 months for me to go from “wow this is my dream job” to “at least the experience is great on my CV”.

Planning to stay for one year, two at most, if things carry on as they are (which I expect they will, workplace culture rarely changes for the better).

I wanted to share my positive experience with IVF because there are so many horror stories online that I was genuinely dreading it beforehand, and was actually questioning whether I could go through with it.

I don’t yet know whether it’s been successful because I’ve only just had egg retrieval, but I wanted to write this for anyone else considering IVF who is worrying after reading everything online like I was.

My IVF Regime

This is my first cycle, and I’m in the UK so I’ve been lucky enough to have treatment on the NHS.

The medications I had were:

• Norothisterone to delay my period

• Gonal-F for follicle growth

• Cetrotide to stop ovulation

• Ovitrelle trigger shot

I was on norothisterone for 10 days, then had a 4 day period before starting injections.

From first injection to egg retrieval was 14 days total:

• Days 1–5: Gonal-F only (evenings)

• Days 6–11: Gonal-F + Cetrotide (Cetrotide in mornings)

• Day 12: Ovitrelle trigger shot at 9pm

• Day 14: Egg retrieval at 9am

I have to say, Day 13 felt so weird having no injections or meds to think about!

Everyone’s IVF protocol is different. I have PCOS, so I was on a lower Gonal-F dose (150iu). All my injections were subcutaneous.

I think it’s worth remembering when you see terrifying IVF stories online that you don’t know what protocol someone else is on. Some people are doing far more injections, intramuscular injections, much higher doses etc. I found my mind would assume what I was seeing online reflected what my regime would be like, when actually a lot of content doesn’t detail what someone’s protocol consists of.

The Side Effects I Actually Had

The things I was most afraid of beforehand were:

• painful injections

• Cetrotide stinging

• bruising

• bloating/swelling

• mood swings and crying constantly

In reality, the injections didn’t hurt at all. The Gonal-F needles are tiny, and so easy that I actually travelled for work whilst using them.

I was more nervous about Cetrotide because the needle used for injecting is slightly bigger, but I barely felt it either. I iced the area for 15 minutes beforehand and never got the stinging sensation people talk about. I did get one histamine reaction after my very last Cetrotide injection, but it was completely manageable. Warm and red for 24 hours but not painful (of course I flagged it with my nursing team).

Symptoms-wise, my skin was at its worst during norothisterone. Little “twinges” started around Day 4 but only a couple of times a day initially, then I had mild period-like cramps start around Day 9, and tender boobs from Day 13 after I had my Ovitrelle.

Weight Gain, Swelling & Bruising

I had almost no noticeable swelling. I’d mentally prepared to look about 6 months pregnant because of Instagram, but that wasn’t my experience.

I gained around 1–1.5kg over the two weeks. I wasn’t obsessively calorie counting but mostly ate whole foods, protein and pulses, with the occasional treat.

Personally, I’d recommend monitoring weight during IVF so you can quickly catch if OHSS might be developing (having PCOS I was obviously higher risk for this).

I had very small yellow bruises maybe half the time from injections, and I bruise very easily. They weren’t painful at all.

Mood & Mental Health

Surprisingly, I wasn’t moody at all (confirmed by my husband!).

I did have moments of feeling tearful if I let myself drift into thinking too much about whether it would work or not work, but I would notice it happening and just “turn off” that line of thought.

I’ve also banned sad music from my playlists, which is a big help.

Energy Levels & Exercise

The tiredness was probably my biggest symptom.

From around Day 5 or 6 onwards I was more tired than usual. I’d be asleep by 9:30pm, waking early around 5/6am, and often needed a midday or early afternoon nap.

Exercise-wise I mostly walked every other day for 1–2 hours.

Work & Social Life

I work part time and took one week of medical leave from Day 6 onwards when I started Cetrotide.

For me, the first 5 days were absolutely manageable in person. After that I think I could have continued working remotely if needed, especially with a flexible manager and lighter afternoons because of fatigue. But because this was my first IVF cycle and I had medical leave available, I wanted to give myself space to rest.

I also kept IVF private from most people, so I didn’t really see friends during this time, but I was still very capable of doing normal things. Day 6 I had a leg waxing appointment; Day 8 I saw a horror movie with my husband (this was not a whole food day, I had a hotdog and ice cream); and on Day 13, the evening before egg retrieval I had dinner out with my husband.

Egg Retrieval

This was the part I dreaded most because my clinic doesn’t offer sedation (I did ask).

I had diazepam, voltarol, local anaesthetic, and gas & air.

I was very sceptical beforehand that this combination would be effective, and was approaching it as something I’d just have to get through.

But the team were great, and the environment in a strange way was sort of relaxing because the lights were dimmed and I could play my own relaxing meditation playlist on the sound system. One nurse’s entire job was just to sit with me, coach my breathing, reassure me and distract me throughout the procedure. She was great.

I stayed on gas & air all the way through. There were a couple of brief sharp moments, but otherwise it mostly just felt achey and uncomfortable, and definitely nowhere near as bad as I’d built up in my head.

Afterwards I had a slightly tearful gas & air comedown, took 500mg cocodamol + 500mg paracetamol straight away, then had the classic NHS tea and toast (so good!).

I was discharged within about 2–3 hours of arriving.

I had cramps for a few hours afterwards but nothing awful. I spent the afternoon sitting in the garden enjoying the start of the sunny bank holiday weekend with a non-alcoholic cocktail. Took one more paracetamol later that day and that was it.

I woke up the next morning with no cramps and no low mood, so hopefully recovery continues smoothly.

Outcome So Far

We got 11 eggs retrieved, which I’m really happy with, and now keeping absolutely everything crossed for the next stage.

I know IVF can be incredibly hard and I’m absolutely not trying to invalidate anyone’s negative experiences. I also know things can still get emotionally difficult from here.

But if you’re someone currently doomscrolling IVF content and convincing yourself it’s guaranteed to be horrific, I just wanted to add one positive experience into the mix because I wish I’d read more posts like this beforehand.

ETA: I had a call this morning from the clinic. None of our eggs fertilised. We are devastated, but my positive experience of the IVF injection protocol / egg retrieval procedure stands.