Balancing Act: Navigating IVF and a Thriving Career
Many individuals face the challenging journey of navigating infertility while maintaining a career. However, they tend to suffer in silence. In this blog post, we will hear the personal story of IVF FLORIDA Patient Marline who embarked on a 15-year fertility journey while simultaneously nurturing her professional goals. Despite encountering numerous hurdles along the way, she successfully balanced the demands of fertility treatments with the requirements of her career. Her inspiring story showcases resilience, strategic planning, and determination.
Infertility is something I never could have imagined my family, and I would have to experience. As such, not only did we not want to deal with infertility, but we were also not equipped or prepared to do so. Experiencing troubles when trying to build a family is not only a tough thing to go through but also uncharted territory with no instructions. When the time came for my husband and me to grow our family, we ran into many roadblocks. It did not happen for us as we had originally planned.
Our fertility journey lasted a whopping 15 years. During those 15 years, many aspects of my life had to be either placed on hold or on the back burner while we navigated this infertility journey. One of the things that could not wait or be paused was my career. Not only did I need to work to contribute to our family’s financial stability, but I also needed to work in order to make a name for myself while on a quest to grow and excel in my career.
My official fertility journey began in 2003. I say "official" because we had already been trying naturally for over 2 years and ultimately decided to see a fertility doctor. My career was just beginning to flourish. During the 15 years of family-building, I was employed by the same company. Although I had job stability, so to speak, I was petrified of everyone, especially my managers, finding out I was struggling to have a family. I felt in my heart that if they knew, they would not want to work with me or view me as an unreliable employee. I believed I would have had to choose between starting a family and putting in the number of hours at work needed to qualify or be recognized for promotions and career advancement. So, those beginning years of doctors’ appointments, labs, diagnostic testing, infertility treatments, etc., were all done secretly, unbeknownst to my managers or the company.
So, how was I able to do that? It required a significant amount of strategic planning, all while stressing myself out along the way. I had to try to plan these vital appointments at the most opportune times so as not to draw attention to my attendance. Therefore, some appointments were as early as 7:00 am. Other appointments were scheduled for lunchtime. I also tried to select clinics that were not located too far from either my house or office so I could have a short commute to and from, in the event I needed to leave. Also, in those early years, I was in school for my undergrad, so that allowed me a bit of flexibility in my schedule as my company hired me as a senior in college. As I earned promotions that required more of my time for training, practicing on new tasks, and working closely with the CFO (Chief Financial Officer), trying to get away or plan for fertility treatments became a bit trickier. As a matter of fact, one of my inseminations (IUI) was performed during my lunch break.
I have to say that as my responsibilities increased at work, I had to put my family-building plans on hold. I can also say that after going through 4-6 cycles of fertility treatments back-to-back and having them be unsuccessful, I think a mental break was normally in the cards. It just so happened that work became busy too, so I used that as an excuse to not feel guilty for putting those plans on hold. After picking up family-building if I had put it on hold, I had to deal with more setbacks that I needed to try to work around. Some of those setbacks included having to have various surgeries required to help improve issues the doctors may have had concerns about as it relates to my fertility. So, that means trying to come up with reasons to tell my managers why I needed time off from work. One year, I even missed our holiday party to have and recover from surgery. It was tough. I had to resort to coming up with clever “reasons” as to why I needed to be off. I did not like that because although I felt it was a private matter, I did not like the idea of not being able to be truthful and fully transparent. I ultimately decided to handle it the way I did because I thought it would be worse if they knew the truth.
By the time we had graduated to having to do IVF (in-vitro fertilization), 10 years had passed of fertility treatments, surgeries, etc. At that point, I knew I had to tell my job what was going on. I didn’t know exactly what to expect with IVF, but I knew it meant more appointments, more labs, and more days off, and I just could not swing that with more stories to my managers. The good thing is that because I had been with the company for almost 10 years, I had built a sense of trust and dependability as an employee. I had also been promoted multiple times, had a strong tenure, and built a great rapport with my mentors and managers. As such, I was able to meet with them (CFO and HR Director) and notify them of the journey my husband and I were able to embark on.
To learn more about Marline's infertility journey, follow her on Instagram (@mcdbe) and check out her book: It’ll Happen by 30: A Relentless Journey of Faith | Delayed but Not Denied, available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and www.mcdbe.com.