Welcome to another episode of The F Word at Work where we're sharing one of our original zoom conversations broadcast in 2022. An enlightening conversation with Mike Johnson-Ellis one half of Two Dads UK with his partner Wes and the pair have founded My Surrogacy Journey (MSJ) and the Modern Family Show. At Fertility Matters at Work we're delighted to be working in partnership with MSJ and you can find out more about what that looks like by having a listen.

What was discussed:

The lack of empathy that Mike expereinced when he talked to his work about his plans.

How they had no understanding of infertility or why he would want to attend appointments with his Surrogate

How Mike had no emotional support, nobody asked him what he needed or what he was going through

His colleagues were far to afraid of saying the wrong thing so they said nothing resulting in Mike not getting any support and feeling the pressure of doing his job as he was distracted by what he was going through. t

How everyone in his work environment couldn't believe he wanted a baby

The Toxic masculinity

Lack of awareness in organisations - 10 years on from when same sex marriages became legal. At that point in time businesses should have started thinking about what that would mean and what people would need and they didn't.

How a basic employment skill is knowing your business and your people and the importance of how we learn by our curiosity - asking people within an organisation what they need support with

Why surrogacy fills people with fear -it's not just for same-sex couples it is for women who can't carry

Explaination of Intended Parents (IP's)

How organisations who proudly say they support LBGT communications - need to ask themselves has the conversation has gone deep enough to find out what they really need

Lack of people talking about policies so we need there to be more conversations

Use staff networks, ideas captures, and forums involving different groups. to raise awareness of this and get the conversation started, you can do it anonymously

The issue with the use of word adoption being used when people are going through surrogacy, you aren't adopting it you are having a biological child

Policies are very heteronormative

Why surrogacy fills people with fear -it's not just for same-sex couples it is for women who can't carry

Thanks once again to our series sponsor Apricity.

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