‘Fertility treatment is like a second job’: How can employers support staff undergoing IVF?

When the personal collides with work during fertility treatment, women react in different ways

Thu Oct 29 2026 - 05:00 • 5 MIN READ

What happens when one of the most personal, intimate things you might experience – a fertility challenge – collides head-on with your career? Increasingly, organisations are offering employee benefits such as financial assistance with fertility treatment and egg freezing but, culturally and behaviourally, they are lagging behind in supporting workers who choose these options, according to researchers at DCU’s Institute for Business and Society.

Pregnancy and parenthood can be a time of great joy and anticipation but for those having trouble conceiving – or those who have miscarried – it can be filled with anxiety, fear and even shame.

Organisational behaviour specialist Céire Gilsenan experienced all these emotions and more when she was going through her first fertility journey while working full-time. She kept the circle of trust small so, besides her partner, only her sister knew she was undergoing IVF.

At work, she slipped out surreptitiously for doctor’s appointments and for phone calls about her results.

“I remember distinctly sitting in the clinic, just feeling so uncomfortable and pretending to read the paper because I was terrified of seeing somebody that I knew. I was physically sweating because I knew I was going to be late back to work, and you’re trying to think of an excuse of where you were.”

Gilsenan felt extremely vulnerable as her high-pressure workplace clashed with the demands of intensive medical protocols. Her experience is not that unusual, according to researchers.

“Work and motherhood are never more on a collision than they are during fertility treatment,” says Prof Yseult Freeney of DCU, who studies women in the workplace. “Fertility treatment is like a second job. It’s a second shift, but it’s one that they can’t control because they don’t know when it’s going to happen. They also really can’t control when they’re going to get bad news.”

[ Fertility treatment and the workplace: ‘It’s a hugely personal thing to have to say’Opens in new window ]

For partners, Freeney says, they’re often “meant to be the strong person in this, but the challenges for them are equally hard, just different. They’re not as physical but they’re absolutely as emotional.”

A VHI survey, Fertility in Focus: The Workplace Realities, found that 14 per cent of women surveyed in 2024 had experienced fertility issues. Of those, two-thirds said it had interfered with work, while only 20 per cent felt prepared and 64 per cent feared future health problems if their stress continued.

Of the respondents, only 27 per cent had spoken to their employer and 74 per cent had sought advice from their GP.

Gilsenan’s decision not to reveal her situation to her colleagues or wider family was deliberate. “I felt that if it didn’t go well, I wouldn’t be able to deal with my own distress and handle other people’s distress or reaction to my distress.”

Her fertility journey was ultimately successful. Afterwards she decided to research this emerging area further. She was the lead author on Experiencing and Responding to Existential Vulnerability: Navigating the Work–Fertility Treatment Interface, published in the Gender, Work and Organisation Journal. Gilsenan was supervised by Freeney and assisted by fellow researchers Lisa van der Werff and Hilary O’Leary of DCU’s Institute for Business and Society.

Gilsenan interviewed 18 other women who had undergone fertility treatment while working full-time. “People had miscarriages and went back to work the next day. They got phone calls at work to say that the treatment hadn’t worked for the third or fourth time and just went back out of that meeting room and into the office like everything was normal.”

Although fertility treatment was gruelling physically and emotionally, all felt it was important to maintain a professional identity. Their desire to work, and be recognised at work, did not pause just because they were trying to become parents.

Whether or not the woman chose to reveal her fertility treatment to family or colleagues, the research found that feelings of vulnerability were common, and the women navigated the work-fertility interface in three distinct ways: masking, confronting and succumbing.

• Masking is the exhausting, active pretence of hiding your physical and emotional distress to protect a professional image. This was the most common response and included hiding appointments, overworking, crying in the toilet and then presenting a brave face in public. Freeney says there’s a feeling among the women that “they can’t put all their eggs in one basket. So, ‘If this is not going to work out, I have to have something else to fall back on’. They then overinvest in work by adopting a masking response.”
• Confronting is when the woman decides to tell a trusted manager or colleague and reclaim some control over her life and time. This helps them set shared boundaries and expectations around appointments and calls. For example, Gilsenan revealed the situation to a concerned colleague, and this provided great relief. “She would cover for me and she even came to the clinic with me a few times. It genuinely did make a world of difference.”
• Succumbing is when the hopeful parent reaches a point of being overwhelmed and can no longer manage their vulnerability, says Freeney. Their capacity to cope has been exceeded and they might start stepping back from projects and feel a profound loss of hope.

One interviewee recounted her first performance review after treatment ended. She told her manager: “Stop talking to me about performance. I don’t care about it any more. I have no one to put through college.”

The paper finds that telling a manager, member of HR or a colleague doesn’t end the vulnerability or distress, and many keep masking even after telling someone.

Gilsenan said of the medical process: “I’ll inject myself a million times. I’ll go through those awful tests and procedures. It didn’t take a jot out of me.” The hard part, she says, was the “anguish of the whole thing, the uncertainty, how vulnerable you are, how unpredictable it is”.

Workplace wellbeing and productivity go hand in hand, so offering to pay for fertility benefits isn’t enough on its own. Organisations should foster compassionate, informed workplace cultures that support employee wellbeing, engagement and retention while reducing the stigma often associated with fertility challenges.

The DCU researchers hope that by making this hidden dimension of working life visible, organisations will build cultures that reduce the weight of existential vulnerability for aspiring parents.

[ ‘Injecting yourself daily is difficult to navigate at work’: Managing fertility treatment while workingOpens in new window ]

Creating fertility-aware workplaces doesn’t mean having all the answers. “You don’t need a policy to lead with empathy and compassion,” says Gilsenan.

Often, the most meaningful support begins with awareness and flexibility for those undergoing treatment. Women shouldn’t have to make up lies to cover appointments, says Freeney. The work is getting done; they just need some flexibility.

“Employees who feel supported by their employer during significant life experiences are more likely to remain engaged, loyal and connected to their organisation. In contrast, employees who feel they must hide their fertility journey may experience increased stress, absenteeism, disengagement and isolation,” says the Sims IVF clinic.

VHI recommends stress supports and counselling, fertility education talks, including fertility in wellness programmes, and flexible working and leave.

Margaret E Ward is chief executive of Clear Eye, a leadership consultancy. margaret@cleareye.ie

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