Fertility Week 2019: #FertilityAtWork

image courtesy IVF@work

This week is UK Fertility Week and today the theme is #FertilityAtWork

I've written about this at length in previous blog posts, which you can check out here:

Nov 18: Fertility At Work

Feb 19: Fertility In The Workplace

Everything I wrote in those posts is (sadly) still just as valid several months on, so please do check them out for more detailed info and insight into the impact of fertility issues in the workplace.

This year I wanted to highlight some new research findings and initiatives that show how this issue is more salient than ever.

Support needs to come at an organisational level

We can only get the support we need from employers if we actually let them know that we're going through fertility issues in the first place.

But if (worst case) we worry that we'll be discriminated against and (best case) that they won't know how to support us - how likely are we to say anything?

New research from LinkedIn found that almost two thirds of workers wouldn’t discuss fertility issues with their employers - but a similar number would be more likely to have a conversation with their employer about fertility if they had training/guidance on how to deal with the conversation.

This fantastic infographic from Dr Uracha Chatrakul Na Ayudhya at Middlesex University highlights the scale of the problem.

Advocating for this change

HR professionals are starting to acknowledge that offering fertility support to employees would make them more competitive in attracting and retaining talent, and that happier employees would be more productive employees.

Which is great. More awareness is good.

But we need more than conversation. We need action.

Much of the coverage in the media about fertility benefits has been around coverage for fertility treatment provided by global corporations. But there's so much more that every company can do - from the small business right up to the multinational.

Claire Ingle is an HR professional and fertility patient who's written about why IVF should be higher on HR's agenda and is speaking out as an activist for change. She is speaking to organisations about the support networks/polices and procedures they have in place (and the most common response is that they simply 'don't') and advocating for change - do check out her IVF@work blog and follow her on Twitter and Instagram

Middlesex University is at the forefront of getting this issue on the agenda, which they described in a recent workshop on 'Contemporary reproduction, work and working life' as 'a neglected but growing form of workplace diversity".

image courtesy IVF@work

Middlesex have collaborated with Fertility Network UK since 2016, leading to the launch of Fertility Network UK's Fertility In the Workplace initiative - offering employers training sessions and policy consultations to help them develop and implement their own fertility policies, as outlined in their Workplace Webinar

The More to Life Webinar Series covers a vast range of issues and subjects for those dealing being childlessnot by choice. We have selected a fantastic group of experts to host this series bringing you information, support and inspiration to help you as you journey through a life unexpected.

Channel 4 recently hit the headlines for their (brilliant) recently launched menopause policy for employees - I hope by this time next year we can see stories about employers launching formal fertility policies in the headlines too...

Baby Loss Awareness Week 2019

This year's Baby Loss Awareness Week was a total whirlwind, a bundle of emotions, and I think I'm still trying to process it all.

Guardian & Daily Mail: The 12 week rule

Things kicked off two days before the start of #BLAW2019 when an article I’d written about miscarriage and the 12 week rule was published in the Guardian on Mon 7th Oct - more about this and how it blew up (becoming a ‘new campaign’. according to Dame Jenni Murray!) in my previous post.

Mourning rituals

The following day, on Tues 8th Oct, I attended the funeral of a dear friend, who’d passed away very suddenly and unexpectedly: the day itself was somewhat of a blur, but on reflection I can’t help but think about mourning her death and celebrating her life juxtaposed with how we commemorate losses for those family members who never joined the family tree.

Tortoise: Why don’t we talk about miscarriage?

Immediately after the funeral I attended a Tortoise ThinkIn event titled Why don't we talk about miscarriage? Tortoise describe their ThinkIn events as ‘the engine of open journalism’:

“A ThinkIn is not another panel discussion. It is a forum for civilised disagreement. Modelled on what we call a ‘leader conference’ in the UK (or an editorial board in the US), it is a place where everyone has a seat at the table. It’s where we get to hear what you think, drawn from your experience, energy and expertise. It’s where, together, we sift through what we know to come to a clear, concise point of view.”

— Tortoise

Editor Polly Curtis reached out to me on Twitter to very kindly invite me to the event after she’d read my article about the 12-week rule - but I only learned afterwards that she has a particularly personal perspective on this subject, having written about her own experience of 8 devastating miscarriages in the Guardian in 2015. She chaired the discussion, featuring 3 terrific special guests

• Julia Bueno - psychotherapist and counsellor specialising in bereavement & pregnancy loss and author of a brilliant book about miscarriage The Brink of Being (that I was lucky enough to review for the Observer Books Review)

• Professor Tom Bourne - consultant OBGYN and Director of Early Pregnancy Research at Tommy's National Centre for Miscarriage Research

• Natasha Necati - trustee of the Miscarriage Association

Here’s some highlights from a really inspiring, thought-provoking evening (& a full recording of the event is available here):

A few thoughts from the room, from our ThinkIn: "why don't we talk about miscarriage?"

Moncrieff

Then on Thu 10th Oct I was thrilled to be invited onto Moncrieff (apparently one of Ireland's most popular afternoon shows!) on Newstalk FM to discuss the 12-week rule with presenter Seán Moncrieff - you can listen to the interview on the Newstalk website (approx 12 mins - not deliberate!) We spoke about why the 12-week rule is harmful, why I want to change the way we talk about pregnancy loss, and also a little about my own experience of infertility and miscarriage (and why I think it's time to reclaim the word 'barren'!)

The cycle of life

In a cruel accident of timing, I was discussing my first miscarriage on national radio on the very day that would have been that baby's due date - and in another life we might have been celebrating a 3rd birthday.

In another life we wouldn’t have been lighting two candles at 7pm on the 15th October, for the global #WaveOfLight, where grieving parents across the world light candles to remember all the babies who have died too soon.

But in this life our journey took a different path. And just as we mourn loss, we celebrate new life. The morning my Guardian article came out, just before the start of #BLAW2019, I received the most wonderful (and unexpected) news from my brother. My beautiful nephew had come into the world 4 weeks early, and I was now an aunt. I am utterly besotted and overwhelmed with love for this tiny human, and so overjoyed he is safely here.

A microcosm of life in one week - birth, death, memories, new experiences, happy, sad and everything in between. Life, eh?

Guardian: Time to scrap the 12-week rule

Last year for Baby Loss Awareness Week I wrote an article for the Guardian about the language of pregnancy loss, and I was thrilled to be given the opportunity again this year. This year I wrote about the '12-week rule'; how it perpetuates the notion that miscarriage is something to hide and we shouldn’t make a fuss, thereby forcing so many women & couples to suffer in silence - and why we need a more empathic and supportive culture around early pregnancy loss.

For something that's so common (1 in 4 pregnancies ends in loss), miscarriage can feel so incredibly lonely, because we're made to feel that it's no big deal and something we should sweep under the carpet. There's a difference between privacy and secrecy: privacy is voluntary, it's a choice you make to keep information to yourself - whereas secrecy is involuntary, when information is kept private out of fear for the consequences. The decision about what, when & if to share information about fertility, infertility, pregnancy and all outcomes thereafter should be a personal choice for YOU to do what's right for YOU - not an enforced societal expectation.

As a non-journalist, it’s a real honour to see my words in print - I’m chuffed to bits, and profoundly grateful to everyone who shared their thoughts on the 12-week rule with me. There's so much more I could have said, and I'd have loved to have explored the different perspectives around the decision to 'tell' - but unfortunately I was up against the constraints of a limited word count! Extra thanks to Prof Arri Coomarasamy, director of the Tommy's National Centre for Miscarriage Research and Dr Jessica Zucker, a clinical psychologist specialising in women's reproductive and maternal mental health and creator of the incredible #IHadAMiscarriage campaign, for their input.

As Jessica says - we may not be able to cure miscarriage, but why don't we at least attempt to cure the conversation?

The reaction

There were a few snarky comments in the Guardian comments section (as you’d expect), but on the whole the reaction to the article has been astonishing and overwhelming in the best way. So many comments on social media brought me to tears: not just because they said how because the conversation about this subject was happening and visible - and both women AND men were stepping out of the shadows to talk about their experiences of loss.

It then got really surreal when the Daily Mail published a response to my piece, co-authored by the brilliant Jennie Agg from The Uterus Monologues and Jenni Murray - describing the reaction to the article as a new campaign to overturn the 12-week rule!

And then even more surreal when a dear friend told me that the BBC ad shared the article on the official CBeebies for grownups Twitter and Facebook accounts - reaching a whole different audience than I’d ever imagined.

I’m deeply sad that so many people have had their own experiences of loss for this piece to resonate, but if it’s helped just one person feel less alone, then to me it’s a job well done.