The Fertility Podcast

Possibly the MOST frustrating diagnosis when you are trying to conceive, unexplained or 'sub' fertility can really mess with your head as you just want to have something you can focus on. It's a label that we give people who haven't conceived within a reasonable timeframe and whilst it doesn't necessarily mean that there's a problem if there might be a number of things that are preventing a pregnancy.

In this episode Dr Jane Stewart, NHS Consultant in Reproductive Medicine in NE England and one of 143 experts is answering more of your questions over at fertially.com who we've worked with to make this bitesize chunk for you.

Jane explains what investigations can be done to try and find out what could be the problem, including explaining how it's important to consider.

Here you'll learn:

• Length of time a couple have been trying
• Making sure they're having reasonably regular sex
• The menstrual cycle of the woman needs to be considered
• Sperm Health - so tests need to be done
• Making sure the woman's fallopian tubes aren't blocked

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Listen to our full a patient story about their Unexplained diagnosis here

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In this episode of The Fertility Podcast Bitesize we'll be hearing from Emma Grønbæk who is a Nurse and Content Marketing Coordinator at Cryos International supplies frozen donor sperm and eggs to more than 100 countries worldwide. Cryos hase the world’s largest selection of Non-ID Release and ID Release donors and boast the highest number of registered pregnancies in the world.

Emma talks about what you need to consider when choosing a sperm donor in this snippet about donor conceptions as well as highlighting the resources Cryos have available for you as they know how overwhelming this decision making process can be.

To find out more visit Cryos International and you can follow them on Instagram and facebook

Do come say hi on Instagram

Welcome to the first episode of The Fertility Podcast bite-size, where the aim is to give you a snippet of useful information.

March is Endometriosis Awareness Month and Andrew Horne is a Professor or Gynaecology and Reproductive Sciences and Co-Director at the EXPPECT Centre for Pelvic Pain and Endometriosis and one of 143 experts is answering more of your questions over at fertially.com who we've worked with to make this bitesize chunk for you.

What you'll learn:

• What is Endometriosis
• How it can impact a woman’s fertility
• What are the symptoms
• The four stages of endometriosis
• How would a woman know what stage of endometriosis she might have?
• The best pain management before surgical intervention 
• Can you still be fertile? If you have endometriosis

To get more support for Endometriosis visit Endometriosis UK

Listen to our full interview with Andrew Horne

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OK, we're trying something a little different in 2022 and we'll be sharing bite-size chunks of useful information with you every Friday. We'd love to know if you like them so do come and say hello on insta

We've given you a whoppa of a final episode as we bring this conversation about Fertility Issues at Work to a close... for now.

It's a big topic and we will of course be revisiting it in 2022, watch this space to hear more as we promise you we will be digging deeper and sharing more of your stories as well as championing organisations who are doing this well. First up you'll hear a conversation Natalie had with South Eastern Rail, after seeing its Head of People Kirsten Howes - talk about the Pregnancy Loss Policy the company launched during Baby Loss Awareness week in October 2021.

Inspired by NZ and her own pregnancy loss, Kirsten had wanted to put something into place and when she had been through it and used to speak to people about the reasons they needed time off, she never had anyone come to her. She had no idea how to feel or do when it happened, how much time she should have off, what was normal and on reflection realised what a huge gap there was in the support they provided and how it was spoken about in the workplace. 

How was it received?

Kirsten said it was so easy, no residence and it was met with a lot of support from people and 180 people joined their briefing during the launch. The company already have a fertility policy since 2020 created by people who had been through struggles to drive change and they also run working lunches, so people can drop in and join a community that has come together. 

How do the conversations happen?

Due to the nature of the work, there have to be 'Safety-critical conversations' as they need to know if people are having treatment as if people are taking medication, they have to know because they get checked. People can’t just drive a train if they aren’t concentrating and could be a safety risk, therefore the channels need to be open for people to talk to their managers. 

How to overcome challenges faced by this being a male-dominated industry?

 The whole industry is trying to become more diverse and inclusive and it is working on the gender balance, especially with train drivers, and more women are joining, however perception needs to change. WIRE - Women in Rail Empowerment group has list of 6 taboo subjects. 

Your experiences:

During this series, we were really interested to hear your experiences in the workplace and we’ve shared many of them. Shona Gilbert got in touch to tell us about her experience in the workplace. She worked in a busy agency at a senior level. After a failed round of IVF she took a break and sometime later, decided to give it another go. Her experience from the first round told her that she needed to prioritise herself and she made the decision to ask her line manager if she could take a sabbatical.

Shona was lucky, her line manager and employers were supportive of her request, however, she acknowledges that this was due to her seniority in the business. She spoke about how her organisation had a fertility policy, but that it was restrictive and more applicable to people in less senior roles than herself who don’t have the privilege of a more flexible role.

This is an interesting workforce disparity that we hadn’t considered before and an interesting topic that needs further investigating….watch this space!

What we've learnt:

Dr. Krystal Wilkinson, Senior Lecturer in HRM, Department of People and Performance talks through the findings from Manchester Metropolitan University and its study ' Complex fertility journeys and Employment' August 2021

Two year study:

We hear about the findings from 80 narrative interviews talking about fertility treatments, tests, miscarriage, involuntary childlessness from men, women and same-sex couples in different workplaces and contracts.

The sample was all at differing stages of the fertility journey and was UK based. We heard about how significant it is that Line managers understand when it comes to a person feeling they can disclose what they are going through, along with the culture of the organisation. People cited their fears around there being a lack of knowledge, invasion of privacy, knowledge of policies and practices - no time, money, organisational culture, whether they are enabled to support.

What is needed?

As we have found with Fertility Matters at Work and our new programme, this research highlights the importance of organisations having access to resources, training, relevant narratives in the workplace which will ideally lead to culture change. Also how important it is to celebrate managers who support people.

We spoke about the Ethnodramas that are being created from the findings and we shared a previous one on The Fertility Podcast which you can listen to here

We spoke about our conversation with Ch4, you can listen here

We also spoke about our conversation with teachers, listen here

We also mentioned the launch of Fertility Matters at Work membership which you can sign up from 4th Jan here

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Dr Krystal Wilkinson

Do you work for an organization that offers fertility benefits? Do you actually know what employee fertility benefits can offer you?

The umbrella of fertility benefits may encompass anything from consultations to obtaining a diagnosis, medication, and treatments such as IUI and IVF. More expansive plans might include egg freezing, donor eggs or embryos, and/or gestational surrogacy. However, in the UK, fertility benefits are less commonplace compared to the US.

In this episode continuing the fertility matters at work series, we’re joined by Jenny Saft, co-founder of Apryl, an organization that provides fertility benefits to companies in Europe to help overcome inequalities by supporting employees to thrive in their careers. Natalie came across Apryl in a report discussing the future of fertility and was intrigued to find out more about their comprehensive fertility benefits platform.

Jenny shares her own experience of working in San Francisco and making the decision to look into egg freezing. Shortly after making this decision, she returned to Germany and was struck by the negativity surrounding egg freezing. She also found the egg freezing process really confusing and Apryl was born (excuse the pun) to help women fill in the gaps.

Following on from the US trend, Apryl offers a 3 step approach for employees – know your options, find the right clinic for you, and let Apryl take over the discussions with your employer. They’re able to offer a personalized service, initial consultations and testing, treatment, and if needed adoption guidance and reimbursement of fees.

Getting Apryl out there has been far from plain sailing. Jenny has heard employers having fears based on the very initially, large companies such as Facebook and Google offering egg freezing and the way in which this was viewed to keep women in employment. Unlike the US where 30% of companies with more than 500 employees offer fertility benefits, progress is slower in Europe. In the main due to the very different health care system in the US compared to the UK and many European countries.

We talk about the benefits to organizations to show that they are fertility-friendly and ask Jenny if she feels that companies have a good understanding of these benefits such as retention and attracting talent? She feels that some companies, such as tech organizations, financial services, and law firms are ahead of the game compared to others.

Jenny hopes that more companies will come to realize the benefits of supporting their employees financially when it comes to fertility in the future. She is already noticing that those organizations that are serious about doing so, are the ones who are ready to have these conversations. Perhaps more pressure from you, the employee, is what’s needed to make this change?

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In this episode, we're delighted to welcome to The Fertility Podcast Kate Jarman who is the Director of Corporate Affairs at Milton Keynes University Hospital. Kate is also the co-founder of the Flex NHS along with her colleague Aasha Cowey. Kate and Aasha campaign for flexible working for all and better working lives in the NHS. We really wanted to chat with Kate as we’ve heard from so many of you, who work in the NHS, about the difficulties you face in juggling your work and your fertility treatments.

What is Flex NHS?

Launched in November 2018 as Kate and Aasha felt there was a lot more that they could do to get equity and parity with flexible working for everybody working in the NHS. There are 1.3 million NHS employees who don’t have a lot of agency over their own time and diaries but may need flexibility for various issues. They’ve spent the last 3 years trying to amplify the voices of those staff who need flexibility in their lives.

How is an organization that is so centered on a positive patient experience not reflecting this in their employee experience?

Kate says that she feels many parts of the NHS do embrace flexibility but in different ways. There are huge challenges and there is no consistency across the organization. She feels, particularly as many people stay working in the NHS for their whole career, that employees need flexibility at different times of their lives for various differing reasons. This has to be two-way, there's a lot of work that we need to do with managers to enable them to feel empowered themselves to have those conversations about flexible working with their employers.

Is change happening quickly enough? 

 Kate says that the pace of change is always an issue, and she would like to see things change faster. However, NHS England's People Plan has made flexibility from day 1 employment a contractual right. This came into effect in the middle of September this year and means you can take a job and you're entitled to flexibility from day 1. Kate feels that there does still exist a moral bar around flexible working and how we value people's time and a lot of judgment that goes into flexible working requests. By giving managers the information they need about flexible working and enabling them to feel empowered around making positive flexible working decisions will help improve this.

Is the perception of part-time jobs being available correct? 

96% of jobs advertised within the NHS are for full-time positions. Kate explains that there is a stigma surrounding flexible working, probably without us realizing it, and this often stops people from asking about flexible working at the recruitment stage. Kate discusses how she sees the NHS England’s People Plan to work in the context of women’s health and fertility. Kate feels that this needs to be supported by really good health and wellbeing policies that are understandable and accessible. She feels that currently, the NHS does too much work in isolation and as a workforce that is 78% women, we need to bring the issues that predominantly impact women to the fore and prioritize them as part of our work. 

Importance of retention

This is a huge challenge for the NHS and we wanted to know Kate’s thoughts on how the NHS can go about retaining women in employment. She mentioned the importance of the manager taking a more active role in checking in on employees, rather than waiting for the employee to come to them with an issue. Kate mentions that there is already some great work being done to support women’s health issues, particularly menopause, through their unions, network groups, and individual champions – often off the back of their own experience. Natalie mentions that not all people going through a fertility journey will want to be an educator and that’s where the Fertility Matters at Work initiative can step in and help.

Advice for NHS workers

Kate recommends that you find out about your employment rights and your organizational policies. Talk to your HR department and manager but also find out about your peer support and network groups to find your advocate. 

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As we get just over halfway through our series focused on Fertility Matters at Work, we’re pleased to be able to share a great example of how beneficial implementing training and support around fertility issues in the workplace can be and how it not only benefits a workplace from a cultural point of view, it impacts productivity, staff retention, and attraction.

During the time Fertility Matters at Work has been developing its e-learning and training and policy package, Kate has very been working directly with a number of organizations, providing training and a clear understanding of what needs to be done to better support employers and one of those organizations is The Bank of England.

In this conversation, we are joined by Anastasia Vinnikova Wellbeing Lead who talked about how the project came about as the bank already had a good foundation within the wellbeing space and a good level of education in core principles in wellbeing and life events, that impacted their workforce. 

In the conversations that came up, it was clear that colleagues felt empowered from the support being provided and the culture shift had created openness and honesty amongst colleagues.

Peer Support

Annastasia explained the existing peer support network which shares experiences with others to offer support. It aims to equip peer supporters with the next steps and onward support. The bank had experienced momentum in their journey of infertility and pregnancy loss as a result of conversation and so had set up a community and resources, along with making policy changes surrounding pay and leave. They had also been sharing experiences through blogs and podcasts 

Line Manager training: 

When talking about the role of Managers, Anastasia talked about the difficulties they can experience and acknowledged the bank still has more work to do on how they educate managers. One measure is to ensure a Manager has supported through other avenues and that employers know that their Manager isn’t the only place they can go to for support, hence the importance of the peer support network. 

Next steps. 

Whist a lot has already taken place the Bank of England are still keen to gain an understanding of why people haven’t engaged with the topic as yet and are looking into further education to help challenge the stigma and taboo around the topic of infertility as you never know how close you are to those going through these challenges?

What challenges needed to be overcome and advice for other organizations: 

When it comes to Well-being challenges, it’s important to understand that they don’t stop the minute you walk into the office. Organizations need to understand that it is important to get past the stigma and put actions in place to get over this. Companies have a moral responsibility and should make it an imperative. Anastasia also talked about how as an organization you don’t get the same out of employees if they don’t feel supported. We also discussed the importance of intersectionality and its impact on mental health. Whilst there might be discomfort initially the fertility conversation inevitably builds momentum. 

From what the Bank of England has implemented to date, they have had positive feedback from individuals which will help inform and guide, however, it’s important to remember, that no one size fits all. 

To find out more about how your workplace can become fertility-friendly and how you can join our brand new membership visit 

www.fertilitymattersatwork.com

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Continuing our series on all things to do with navigating a fertility journey whilst working, we’re delighted to chat with Natalie’s co-founder and partner in crime at Fertility Matters at Work - Becky Kearns. Sadly, Claire Ingle who is also a co-founder had tech gremlins and couldn’t join us to chat. We’re also joined by Helen Burgess who, like Kate, is a partner at Fertility Matters at Work and an employment lawyer at Shoosmiths.

Becky gives us the low down on the recent launch of the Fertility Matters at Work e-learning training and policy program, that supports employers become ‘fertility friendly’. E-learning helps employers understand what is involved in a fertility journey but also how to have conversations to support their employees. The e-learning covers all the different ways in which families can be made, including solo motherhood and same-sex relationships, and is suitable for all organizations whether large or small.

Helen shares why her firm, Shoosmiths was keen to start talking about this topic. After talking to colleagues Helen found that, like her, there was very little support in the workplace, and as an employment lawyer wanted to shine a light on employers and organizations.

Becky and Helen share their own personal experiences of their fertility journey in the workplace and the difficulties they faced. Becky experienced early menopause at the age of 28. She luckily had flexibility in her role, as an HR professional, to attend appointments but struggled with disclosing her diagnosis and the need for treatment. In particular, she struggled with the emotional aspects and juggling her workload. She just felt so alone and exhausted. Helen, similar to Becky, was in a senior position and therefore had the flexibility to attend fertility treatments and fortunately had a supportive colleague. Helen made the decision to divulge to her team, but the flip side was the need to than to tell work when a fertility treatment fails, and the difficulty of reliving it all whilst trying not to be emotionally reck at work.

Claire talks about the difficulty in disclosing your fertility journey to your employer and their worries over confidentiality and the impact on their careers, but also how often disclosing can be a relief if you are given the support you need. She also talks about the constant triggers in the workplace from baby showers and new babies being brought into the office. Fertility wellbeing is so much more than just having the flexibility to attend appointments…….

Kate asks Helen what organizations need to consider from a legal perspective. Sadly, currently, there is very little protection for employees. There is no legal right to attend appointments and it is down to the employer. Helen mentions that in some circumstances if you’re refused flexibility to attend appointments then it could amount to indirect sex discrimination. Employers do need to consider when employees are not on their A-game so that they can offer support. After embryo transfer, you are protected by pregnancy discrimination protection.

Helen is not sure if there will be a legal change in the future but is hopeful, but certainly not in the short term. Disability employment law doesn’t cover infertility but could cover some of the conditions that lead to infertility such as severe endometriosis. Helen also discusses the complexities of same-sex relationships and discrimination.

We talk about how a policy is the first step, but employers need to consider so much more such as raising awareness, recognizing the complexities of fertility in the workplace, and peer support. Employers need education on what to say and what not to say.

Becky shares her advice on how employees can start a conversation with their employer. The Fertility Matters at Work, website provides lots of guidance in relation to this but Beck recommends writing a list of points you want to raise in the meeting, making sure you have the conversation in a private space, highlight the need for confidentiality, be prepared to educate your employer as they may know very little about what’s involved with fertility treatment and explain the need for flexibility. It can be helpful to agree on a communication plan, so you don’t feel the need to be constantly updating your employer. Importantly, say what you need, and don’t be afraid to signpost your employer to fertility matters at work to provide them with the information they need.

At the end of the podcast, we all agree that we’re beginning to see a drive for change and there are more conversations. The potential feels huge. Watch this space…………

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