Navigating your fertility journey at work

They say timing is everything and yet it’s so easy for our plans to get lost in the daily busyness of our lives. Constant meetings, reports, deliverables and deadlines – time just seems to slip away from us in the hustle and bustle of building a career. And, for women hoping to have children, there’s that ongoing race against the body clock too.

But there are things we can do to take control amid the chaos, at least when it comes to planning for a family.

The first is to get educated. Learn about how fertility works, and in particular, how your fertility works – because we’re all different. We covered how to do this in the first of our two-part series, Information is Control, which you can read here.

The next step is to decide what to do about it. There are never any guarantees when trying to fall pregnant. And as we age, the odds stack higher against us. That’s why an increasing number of working women in their 30s – who aren’t yet ready to have children – are choosing to freeze their eggs.

So how does it work? Dr Kokum Jayasinghe, from Melbourne IVF, explains.

“As our bodies are getting ready to ovulate, a number of floating follicles – each containing eggs in the early stage of development – come to the surface of our ovaries. Eventually, one egg gets ‘picked’, matures, then travels down to the uterus. The rest die and get absorbed into the body. It doesn’t mean the other eggs are bad, it’s just the way our human physiology works.” Dr Jayasinghe says.

“If we are going to do an egg freeze cycle, we see women at the beginning of the menstrual cycle and give them injections. These boost egg production and prevent the selection of just one egg, enabling us to rescue the others.”

A long needle, guided by ultrasound imagery, is used to retrieve these eggs from the ovaries. The whole process is done under sedation, typically on an outpatient basis. Afterwards the eggs are frozen and stored, ready to be fertilised and inseminated at a later date.

It’s a daunting process that many describe as lonely. In reality, you’re anything but.

In 2021, 5,881 ‘fertility preservation cycles’ were conducted in Australia and New Zealand – up 61.5 percent on the year before. That’s according to the latest research from the University of NSW.

The study also reveals more than 20,000 babies were born that same year as the result of Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART), such as egg freezing and, ultimately, IVF. The average age of these new mums was 36. More than a quarter (25.3%) of them were over the age of 40.

This is the same age at which women are cementing their careers. They’re likely to be managers, department heads or executives – senior talent that employers don’t want to lose.

That’s why some companies are offering ‘family-building’ benefits, as a way to attract and retain staff. Earlier this year, Google joined the ranks of other tech giants like Apple, Meta and Asana, to reimburse employees for egg (or sperm) freezing, along with IVF.

Only a handful of businesses in Australia are doing this at the moment. Employers are much more likely to offer staff ‘fertility leave’. This is typically up to five days paid-leave for employees to attend appointments related to their reproductive health. State governments are increasingly offering this to public sector workers, and big corporations like Westpac are also getting on board.

Dr Jayasinghe says time off is crucial for women undertaking fertility treatment. But she says businesses can do other things to support employees embarking on this often emotional journey.

“Encourage a workplace culture of support,” she said “including peer support, so that women can actually talk to other people who have done fertility treatment.

“And be really understanding. Allow time off so they can do their scans or blood tests. Be flexible with the time they come to work and be understanding if short notice is given. Grant them a day off for their procedures.”

It’s worth checking out what your workplace policies are around fertility leave. It might sometimes be called reproductive leave or family planning (or building) leave. If you’re comfortable doing so, have a conversation with your manager or someone in HR to find out what supports are available and how to apply for them. Dr Jayasinghe acknowledges this can be difficult. That’s because she knows first-hand what it’s like to struggle to conceive, let alone talk about it.

“There’s a stigma around infertility and I felt that myself. I was in my early 30s when I wanted to start a family and I realised that it wasn’t happening and I needed help. There I was, halfway through training to become an obstetrician-gynaecologist, and I needed IVF to fall pregnant with my first child,” she says.

“And that is where the spark started and the interest developed [in this medical specialisation] because I went through all the emotions my patients go through. I understand them at a much deeper level.”

Dr Jayasinghe says it took her ten years to feel comfortable telling her story, but now speaks openly and often about it in order to break the stigma. She encourages other women to talk about their experiences – whatever they may be – to normalise discussion about reproductive health.

This not only supports those trying to conceive, it gives all women the chance to better understand their bodies and make informed choices about their options and their future.