How much time away from work for IVF?

[chisaomom]

Considering IVF but wondering how to manage it without jeopardizing my job. The company I work for is going through a merger right now and downsizing, plus, I don't want to tell my male boss, since I work in a male-dominated field and the guys all hang out together. Can it be done? How much time away from the job is required? My commute to work is 30 miles away from my home and the clinic.

I'm staring down 45, so need to do something soon if i'm going to. Thanks in advance for any insight you can provide.

[lizzardg]

Will they use your eggs?

Some clinics will not use your eggs at 45- probably most. If you are using donor eggs you actually will need less visits most likely. I hope I am not the bearer of bad news, however.

[YummyYarnAddict]

Originally Posted by chisaomom

Considering IVF but wondering how to manage it without jeopardizing my job. The company I work for is going through a merger right now and downsizing, plus, I don't want to tell my male boss, since I work in a male-dominated field and the guys all hang out together. Can it be done? How much time away from the job is required? My commute to work is 30 miles away from my home and the clinic.

I'm staring down 45, so need to do something soon if i'm going to. Thanks in advance for any insight you can provide.

A lot of it depends on your clinic's hours. My clinic opens at 7am and does procedures 7 days a week. Also, things like blood draws and ultrasounds were first come, first serve, so I would head out early and try to be the first -- or one of the first -- people there and I usually was. Off the top of my head, I would say that in 7 cycles I only made it late to work because of an ultrasound or bloodwork once or twice and that was because of traffic.

The things that were out of my control were retrieval and transfer, however I had two retrievals that fell on a Saturday, so those didn't impact work. You usually want to take the rest of the day off of work after retrieval. Some women find that they need the next day off as well. I never had any problems with retrievals and I've had them with and without being put to sleep (and I personally prefer them without being put to sleep), and just need an hour or so to recover (and they get lots of eggs from my ovaries too!).

For transfer, some docs prescribe x number of days of bedrest afterwards, so that's something you'll want to ask your doctor about. Bedrest after transfer is one of those things docs don't agree about and you can find research supporting either argument. My docs -- I've cycled with three -- are all in the "no bedrest" camp (as am I) and I've never taken any time off for transfer. I think of it as something you can schedule on an extended lunch break. My bosses never knew that I was cycling. I took more time off to deal with my pregnancy losses (D&Cs, etc.) than I did for my IVF cycles.

So... I would look at the following:

1) what is your clinic's set up in terms of hours of availabilty to accommodate blood draws, ultrasounds, procedures, etc? Do they have weekend hours?
2) what does your RE recommend in terms of bed rest, time off of work after procedures?
3) what is traffic/travel time like between your clinic and place of employment? (My commute from my RE's office to my job was 45 mins in rush hour traffic if I took public trans and 15 mins if I drove, so I had to budget for parking)
4) how much of a lead time do you have for your protocol schedule?

[YummyYarnAddict]

Originally Posted by lizzardg

Some clinics will not use your eggs at 45- probably most. If you are using donor eggs you actually will need less visits most likely. I hope I am not the bearer of bad news, however.

Not all clinics discriminate against 40+ yo women. I can think of two off the top of my head who do not (yes, I've cycled with them though I'm not yet 40 myself). One did IVF cycles with a friend (not a friend of a friend) who was 45yo when she started, with her own eggs. This same RE also let a 49 yo woman (again, not a friend of a friend, but a friend of mine) do 2 IVF cycles with her own egg (only one egg per cycle because that's all she produced). The RE practice I'm with now will also let women who are (very) 40+ cycle. It's often the private practice/solo practitioner clinics or the ones that aren't as concerned about their stats who will let women cycle well into their 40s. 49yo IS unusual, but 45 is not so unusual with these clinics. If you go to a "chain" clinic or higher profile "name" clinic they will probaby turn away a "problem" infertile like someone with high FSH or PCOS because they're worried about their stats, but that's when you need to start looking at the ones who want to help women realize their dreams instead of being more focused on their stats. Those docs are out there.

[lizzardg]

Time off

I'm sorry- I didn't mean to imply that they should or shouldn't use your eggs. But, if your FSH is high and they can't or won't, you'll only need 2-3 monitoring visits prior to the transfer after your initial visit. Both clinics we've used also do a first come first served for monitoring, so if you get there really early you get out quicker, but we've usually been there upwards of an hour and they open at 8, so I wouldn't be able to get to work much before 10. Often it seemed to fall on a Sat, which is good and bad. If you use your eggs, you'll have a variable number of visits, maybe 5 or more. Then you have to take off for the retrieval (we will have sedation, so the whole day) and transfer- maybe just the afternoon. Now that I write this I realize we've spent lots of time doing this. But, no one at my workplace knows except a friend- I am fortunate to have more control over my time.
Ask what time they open and how they do app'ts- by time or first come, and if you have to wait for interpretation of the results before you leave or if they can call you. Most will call you but one nurse wanted us to wait one Saturday and I thought I might jump out of my skin waiting in the waiting room.
Again, I hope you can use your eggs if you want, and I hope this helps.

[Perdita_in_Ontario]

I took time off work the couple of days before and after ER (because I was very uncomfortable) and took vacation for several days after ET.

Rather than tell everyone what was going on, I told them I was going through "minor surgery" and left it at that. I kind of implied it was a "womanly problem" which meant that they didn't ask any more questions...

[hockeylover]

After all my transfers, (none of which have been successful which has nothing to do with the procedure) I laid low and in bed for 2 days. My doctor recommended me doing no standing, other than going to the toilet, for 24 hours and wait that one day before standing long enough to take a shower. Might as well relax and allow everything to stick in there. After that, I was up doing pretty much my normal routine, except no exercise for two weeks until pregnancy could be confirmed. Definitely check with your doctor.

Because of my very wacky work schedule, I've been able to finagle the transfer day so that it works for me. It depends on how long your doctor wants the egg to fertilize, that could help with the transfer date. My doctor prefers a Day 5 transfer but it could be done at Day 3. Maybe you can work it out so that the transfer happens on a Friday so that you take one day off of work (sick day? three day weekend getaway?) and then have the weekend to relax and then back to normal routine on the Monday.

Hope that helps and good luck. As someone well over 40 and TTC, I get the time pressure, believe me.