4.7 rating on App Stores
00:00:00 Thank you and hi, thank you everybody who's come along tonight. So tonight I'm talking about career and fertility. It's something that comes up a lot when I speak to people in my support groups and things like that about how difficult it is to juggle work whilst going through fertility treatment. So as Sebastian mentioned, I'm a personal development coach and the author of the IVF
00:00:21 Positivity Planner. I've worked in the field of fertility for around eight years now and I work with clinics and organisations to help them better support their patients and their and organisations to help them better support their patients and their employees. I also run numerous online and face-to-face support groups for fertility and the menopause.
00:00:38 And a lot of this has been driven through my own personal journey. So I went through at my own six-year IVF and infertility journey which led me to wanting to work in this field to support people so that they didn't have to go through the same experience I had and that they hopefully felt a lot more supported. So in this webinar I wanted to cover some of the key facts about infertility in So in this webinar I wanted to cover some of the key facts about infertility in
00:01:01 IVF and the day-to-day reality of infertility because there may be people on here who are going through that and who hopefully this information will make you feel less alone but also give you some information if you're about to start treatment just to help you on your way. But also there may be people on here who know friends, loved ones, colleagues
00:01:21 who are about to start treatment and want to be able to better support them. So I'm going to go through the key facts about IVF and some coping strategies that you can that you can use whilst you're in work and outside of work including coping with things like overwhelm and ways to help you take back control because I know from my own journey and
00:01:39 from the people I speak to every day that control is something that they feel they're really lacking when they're struggling with infertility and going through treatment. So we'll talk about some ways you can take back control. We'll also have a look at how infertility affects men and supporting partners and strategies that they can use to get the support they need as well.
00:01:57 We'll look at the impact of infertility and fertility treatment on work and We'll look at the impact of infertility and fertility treatment on work and look at some strategies for juggling work and treatment because it can be really difficult when you're already feeling overwhelmed about treatment to suddenly think about how you work it around your work day, whether you tell people, whether you don't tell people.
00:02:15 So we'll look at some ways that you can manage that. We'll also have a look at some ways that you can support a colleague who's going through treatment or who's struggling with infertility at the minute so that you can feel better quick to help them while they're going through treatment and remain happy and productive at work as well.
00:02:29 at work as well. And I'll talk you through some support resources. So according to the World Health Organization it's estimated 9 to 15% of couples worldwide are infertile which equates to about 186 million people globally. So it's not something that's happening to a small amount of people and if you are on this journey yourself and you're not alone in going through it there's a lot of
00:02:51 people who are also the same and who understand how you're feeling. It's being categorized by the World Health Organization as a disease or female It's being categorized by the World Health Organization as a disease or female reproductive system so it's really important to understand that this isn't a lifestyle choice, this isn't a luxury and sometimes I think IVF can get blocked with those things
00:03:10 especially in a workplace capacity. So it's really important to understand that it isn't a personal choice to go through treatment for many people it is their only option of starting a family. Women who are struggling with infertility experience the same levels of depression as women with cancer, HIV and heart disease.
00:03:28 So again you can see the real emotional impact that can have on people, the So again you can see the real emotional impact that can have on people, the mental health impact and a study by the fertility network showed that 42% of women surveyed and there was nearly a thousand women surveyed had felt suicidal at some point during their journey which again really highlights the huge mental health impact the infertility can
00:03:47 have but also why it's so important that people supported through it. It can cause feelings of shame, guilt, low self-esteem and it can very commonly lead to depression, anxiety, people feel out of control of their bodies and their to depression, anxiety, people feel out of control of their bodies and their future and it can lead to a poor quality of life.
00:04:05 So again it's so important to if you're going through it yourself to seek some sort of support and understand that you're not alone in going through this and those feelings are really normal but also if you're supporting somebody through it it's good to understand that so you can make sure they're getting the support they need. So in terms of practical information I think if you are lucky enough to have
00:04:26 not needed to go through treatment not everybody understands how expensive it is and some to go through treatment not everybody understands how expensive it is and some of the practical things around it so it isn't cheap. So in the UK the average cost of IVF is £5,000 and there may be additional costs on that depending on the treatment that you're having and this varies from country to
00:04:42 country as well but it isn't cheap to go through IVF. So again this isn't something that people would choose to do if there was another option for them. In terms of the UK funding so NHS funding differs in different regions because of the different integrated care boards so if you are in the UK and you're wondering
