Coping with miscarriage and fertility challenges at work

Our focus for this Season is the 4 Ms (Monthlies, Miscarriage, Maternity and Menopause) and it is a pleasure to welcome Emma Menzies, a Fertility at Work Coach as my guest. In recognition of Fertility Awareness Week, today we’ll be talking about ‘Coping with miscarriage and fertility challenges at work’.

A big thank you to The Surrey Park Clinic for sponsoring this season. Many of us don't prioritise our health. Whether we are juggling work, home-life or family, we often put our health concerns to the bottom of the list. But going through periods, gynae concerns, fertility problems, pregnancy and menopause can be physically and emotionally draining and can affect our confidence. The Surrey Park Clinic can help and will put your health first. Open 6 days a week and offering both virtual or in-person consultations, they are offering our listeners 10% off all initial consultations when you reference this podcast. To find out more, call 01483 454 016 or visit www.thesurreyparkclinic.co.uk.

About this episode

Our focus for this Season is the 4 M’s which are Monthlies, Miscarriage, Maternity and Menopause, and how these can affect women at work. I’ll be talking to some incredible women and experts from around the world to share their real-life stories, advice and tips, to inspire you in your career. 

It is a real pleasure to welcome Emma Menzies, a Fertility at Work Coach as my guest today. In recognition of Fertility Awareness Week, I’m delighted she is joining me to share her own personal story and her advice for women on ‘Coping with miscarriage and fertility challenges at work’.

Resources

The Surrey Park Clinic: The Surrey Park Clinic is offering our listeners 10% off all initial consultations when you reference this podcast. To find out more, call 01483 454 016 or visit www.thesurreyparkclinic.co.uk.

Fertility Awareness Week: Fertility Awareness Week running from 1-5 November 2021, is an awareness week that's hosted by the charity, Fertility Network UK. To find out more, visit https://fertilitynetworkuk.org/national-fertility-awareness-week-1-5-nov-2021/

Joy’s Forbes article with Emma: Fertility Is A Workplace Matter

Emma’s website: https://readysteadycoach.com/

My Confidence Matters Hormone Hubs: A major obstacle for women at work is dealing with the 4 Ms – Monthlies, Miscarriage, Maternity and Menopause. The symptoms and side effects of all of these can be debilitating, impact a woman’s confidence and can lead to many days of sick leave, taking extended time off work or leaving the workplace altogether. Our Hormone Hubs are eight-week virtual group coaching programmes delivered on Zoom for up to eight women at a time to support your women with coaching, health and wellbeing support, access to specialists and providing a support network of colleagues. They can be run as a Menopause Hub, Monthlies/Period Hub, Maternity Hub and/or Miscarriage Hub depending on the needs of your organisation. Get in touch to find out more.

Episode transcript

Joy Burnford: Hello Emma and welcome to The Confidence Conversation.

Emma Menzies: Hi, thank you for having me.

Joy Burnford: It's lovely to have you here. Thank you for joining me today. And it's a very personal topic that we're going to be talking about. So I just wanted to thank you very much for coming along and sharing with us today. And I'm very, very thankful and very lucky that it's not something I've ever had to deal with in my life. So I really appreciate you coming on and talking to others who have perhaps been in the same boat or are in the same boat as you. And I think it's wonderful that you're shining a light on such an important topic as well for all women, and men as well. So today, we're going to talk a little bit about you, your personal story, and we'll talk about the impact of miscarriage and fertility challenges on working women. And also we'll touch on workplace support as well, because I hadn't realised until we started speaking that infertility affects around one in six couples in the UK, which is just amazing. I had no idea.

Emma Menzies: I think a lot of people are surprised by the numbers, because it is such a silent issue. I think a lot of people think they don't know anybody who's going through it. Whereas it's the case that you don't know that you know, and in particular in workplaces, I think people think, oh, it's not it's not an issue, but it's all going on behind closed doors quite often.

Joy Burnford: Well, tell me a little bit, for our listeners, about you and your career background and your personal experience, if that's okay about your experience of miscarriage and fertility challenges whilst you're at work?

Emma Menzies: Yeah, sure. So I'm an employment lawyer. And I started my career with Eversheds, now Eversheds Sutherland, a multinational law firm. And then I moved in house with Marks and Spencer. And I was advising on a daily basis on career and workplace issues, and lots of things that are relevant to fertility in the workplace, like attendance, ill health, performance, discrimination, flexibility, and so on. And from time to time alone, not that often, a direct sort of fertility work issue would come up. So I was doing all of that when at Marks and Spencer’s when my own fertility journey started. And my husband and I, you know, started to try a family, we did get pregnant. And unfortunately, that first pregnancy resulted in a miscarriage. So we found out at that first scan at 12 weeks that there was no heartbeat. And from that point on, we had difficulties conceiving. And we had more miscarriages when we did conceive. And it was, you know, there was lots of investigations, and then treatment after treatment, and always looking for things that we could do differently. Other support we could get, changes to our diet, changes to our lifestyle, seeing an acupuncturist, I mean, you name it, we were we were doing it. And it was really difficult, it was really all consuming, mentally and emotionally definitely, often logistically as well. And that was going on alongside a career, which is all consuming and has a lot of pressure and a lot of demands. And it was a real challenge. And one of the hardest things I've had to do. And, you know, I was approaching it in a way that I guess I'd approached my academics, my career, that would set me up for success before which was this very sort of push through, work hard, you know, if it doesn't work, work harder, kind of masculine sort of approach. And after six years of that, I burnt out, and well, that was the turning point, it was a really difficult time, but it was also the turning point in terms of my own personal transformation, and my career transformation, and sort of evolving from there.

Joy Burnford: It's interesting, isn't it, how you just, you don't realise what is going on in everybody's world. You know, when you peel away that layer of the kind of career, you know, the hard work that everybody's doing, and you peel that away. And actually the challenges that some people are facing at work is just horrendous. And you just sometimes don't know it's really hard, isn't it to, to know how to, well I would find it very difficult to know how to deal with that as a colleague, and we'll talk about that later as well. So tell me about how you came to be a fertility at work coach.

Emma Menzies: So from this point where I was sort of burnt out, you know, there was a lot of healing to be done from everything that had gone before. And there was a period of reflection, and it really occurred to me that I'd got to the point where I blamed you know, all the suffering, if you like of my life about not having a baby and was really reliant on our having a baby to be happy, and it was just my whole life was on hold for this day to come. And there was this dawning moment well, actually, I could be being happy now. And you know, that my destiny if you like was a lot more in my control in terms of having a happier and fulfilling life. And I just needed to sort of change my attitude and my behaviour in certain respects to bring some more of that goodness in, which didn't mean giving up on that wish to wanting to be a mum, but making some changes that would create a life, more of a life that I wanted, whilst I was on that path. And for me, that looks ultimately like a career change. It was fairly organic from deciding, you know, I didn't want to work where I was working in those sorts of environments anymore, to actually, I don't want to practice law anymore. And eventually, it was coaching that was, you know, being this absolute gift to me to help me transform in this way that I then wanted to give back to other people. So I retrained as a coach, and I guess, I felt like I wanted my journeys, my experiences to matter. And I really wanted to help other people who were struggling with fertility issues, because it is a really difficult thing. I wanted to help them live happier, healthier, more fulfilling lives while they were on that path. And just taking into account my personal experiences, my professional background, it was fertility at work, where I felt I was best placed to make that difference.

Joy Burnford: Amazing. And this week is Fertility Awareness Week. Can you explain a little bit about what that is?

Emma Menzies: Yes, so it's national Fertility Awareness Week, which is an awareness week that's hosted by the charity, Fertility Network UK. And really, it's about challenging and changing perceptions around fertility and infertility. It's about bringing awareness to the sort of support that is available to people in all stages of a fertility journey. And of course, you know, doing this podcast, I think, is really helpful for those two things. So thank you for that. And it's about raising money as well to try and reach the people who need support.

Joy Burnford: So I know that going through, you know, miscarriage or fertility treatment can really affect every area of your life and wellbeing as we've talked about, can you tell me a little bit about that, you know, how it affects you know, your mental health, the financial impact, relationships, confidence, career, that kind of thing. You know how does it impact on everything, because it just so impactful, isn’t it?

Emma Menzies: It impacts absolutely everything. And I think that, for me, and I think lots of women I've worked with as well, it's such a shock, just how much it does infiltrate every aspect of your life in ways that you just couldn't imagine beforehand. There's a definite physical element to start with, there can be a lot of pain and discomfort in some cases in relation to, some people have some actual conditions that are relevant to the fertility challenges they're having like endometriosis, for example. So that can be kind of discomfort that comes with that and the management and treatment of that, but also with the investigation into fertility issues, and the fertility treatments, sometimes requiring surgery. Often, in most cases, medication, I think a lot of people know that. With most fertility treatments, there's self-administered injections. And these things can cause bruising. They can cause severe headaches, bloating, sickness, sleep problems, diarrhoea, tummy upsets, you know, the range of things that can often come with severe sort of hormone fluctuations as well. So also the case of pregnancy loss, that can be a painful and uncomfortable experience that can sometimes require surgery. And likewise, sort of hormone fluctuations can have side effects as well. So there is a physical element to it. Mentally and emotionally, you know, it's not uncommon for people to experience depression, stress, anxiety, and the figures around that are quite eye opening as well. Fertility Network UK did a study that showed that 90% of patients having fertility treatment experienced depression, and 42%, suicidal thoughts. And I think it was Imperial College London as well did a study that showed that a third of women had post-traumatic stress within a month of a miscarriage. And in most cases, that was a miscarriage within the first 12 weeks. So you can get an idea from that about the extent to which mentally it really does mentally and emotionally it does really take its toll. And I don't think the silence around it helps that.

Joy Burnford: Absolutely. And I think you know, that comes on to thinking about how you cope with all of this when you're at work, you know, just talking about that without having the work burden on top of it as well. It's like, Whoa, how do you deal with all of that? And then, you know, what advice would you give to listeners who are dealing with these sort of challenges whilst trying to manage their job and their career as well, from your personal experience, and the people that you help you know, what can the impact be at work?

Emma Menzies: The impact at work, I mean, there's these physical challenges, there’s these mental challenges, there's a social sort of isolation. And there's a financial challenge in a lot of cases, which can lead to a pressure to earn a certain amount to be able to progress on that journey as well, which then can link to career challenges. And definitely, it does cause or exacerbate challenges in the workplace, for example, career direction and progression. It's not uncommon for, again, women in particular to find themselves holding back from going for opportunities they stay in careers, or they stay in roles that are no longer right for them. Because they think they have to sort of hold back until they've got through this process. There's a real problem with work life balance and juggling the career and the kind of second career if you like, it's almost becomes like a second job of fertility treatment. And that can often have the impact of women thinking, I need to reduce my hours, or I need to change responsibilities or I need to leave. And then there's the, we've talked about the physical and mental impact. And that then, you know, bleeds into confidence and perceptions and anxieties around your performance, attendance, and what other people are thinking, your ability to relate to your colleagues to connect with your work, and to seek and ask for support as well. So they tend to be the sorts of issues that come up, and I help my clients navigate.

*** Joy Burnford: I do hope you’re enjoying the conversation so far. I want to take a moment to tell you a little bit more about my reasons for doing this podcast. At My Confidence Matters our mission is to advance gender equality through building confidence and capability. I’m passionate about enabling every woman to have the confidence to progress in their career, and I love talking to, and sharing women’s stories to inspire others. This podcast forms a small part of what we do, and if you think there’s room for improvement in the way your organisation understands and manages the issues, barriers and obstacles that women face in the workplace, please do get in touch or tell your HR contact about us.

And don’t forget, if women’s health issues are impacting you at work, the highly experienced team of specialist fertility and women's health consultants, nurses and sonographers at The Surrey Park Clinic are offering you 10% off all initial consultations when you reference this podcast. ***

Joy Burnford: What's your view on sort of talking about it at work, because obviously, some people want to keep it all very private, and they don't want to talk about it with their colleagues and managers. And often, I guess that, you know, might add to the burden. But equally, you know, if you don't want to talk about it, you don't want to talk about it. So what's your view on how much it should be talked about in the workplace, you know, in terms of understanding all these people, going through it.

Emma Menzies: I think it would be helpful if there was less of a culture, that this needs to be kept quiet, and more of a culture of it's okay to talk about it, which I'm not saying jump from what at the moment, there's this kind of taboo, we have around talking about it to everybody has to shout it from the rooftops, but more a sense that there's a legitimate and real choice to do that, and that it's okay, and it's normal. And it's not stigmatised to do that. Because there is a lot to be gained from being open about it, I think it can be a relief to have that weight of secrecy lifted, I think it can be reassuring to know that somebody can put your behaviour, if you like, into some kind of context, or the way that you're showing up into some kind of context, it can be reassuring to understand exactly what support you can get and what is open to you. And what can be done is to have strategies for handling things and get rid of those what ifs. And to some extent, it can offer a security of legal protection, depending on the circumstances. So there's a lot to be gained. But at the same time there is these anxieties, which tend to be around how far is this information going to go? This is quite private, I'm sharing something quite private, who's going to have access to it? What are they going to think and what they're going to do with it? And what's going to be the impact on my future career prospects? So all of that needs to be weighed up. And I think it is a really individual thing. I don't think there's a right or wrong answer. There is just a right or wrong for each person. And you know, we're all different. Our experiences are all different, our workplaces are all different. So certainly when I'm working with people, I would explore with them what was right for them. But to make it normal, we do need to be having more conversations about it and making it known that it is okay to have those conversations.

Joy Burnford: Yeah, I think you're right. It's kind of, now maternity is very much talked about, isn't it in the workplace. And I think menopause is becoming a lot more talked about in the workplace as well. I think miscarriages, I think starting to be talked a bit more about in the workplace, but maybe not so much. It's kind of having that framework and as you say, the culture of, of openness that people know they want to talk they can talk.

Emma Menzies: I think it has been in the past, it hasn’t been helped by the don't say anything till 12 week culture that sort of has stigmatised talking about it and sharing about it and that's made it more difficult to grieve as well, and to seek support, which means that you know that more people are dealing with the mental health impacts we've been talking about in, in silence.

Joy Burnford: And I'd love to just sort of, any particular tips you have about, you know, women who might have issues managing time off or appointments and treatments alongside their job, you know, what advice would you give to them? How do you manage that balancing act?

Emma Menzies: Again, it's not sort of a formula, if you like, it's very much a case by case basis. So there's a logistical part to it. But quite often, there is a mindset and kind of emotional part to it as well. So, again, as a coach, I don't advise my clients, I don't tell them what to do on the basis that again, everybody's different, everyone's circumstances are different. It's about finding what's right for them. So it's something that, you know, I get to explore what works in their scenario. And yeah, it's not a one size fixed all but we don't just look at the logistics, we look at the mindset around it, because quite often, that's where some of the blocks are.

Joy Burnford: Absolutely, absolutely right. I think when I've talked to a lot of companies, I talk about personalization, in around everything, you know, organization's are made up of humans, and actually, every human is different. And you need to be able to treat and empathise with those human beings in a way that suits them, because that'll only be good for your business at the end of the day.

Emma Menzies: But also, I think every human being is different. But every experience for one person is different. I've had several miscarriages and several treatment cycles, and they're never the same. And what I need each time is not the same. So when we're supporting people who are going through fertility challenges and baby loss, flexibility is so key in this kind of openness to work with what is actually happening and what's there as opposed to what we might have experienced ourselves or seen in other people or seen in that person at another time. You know, you've got to suspend judgement and assumption and work with what is.

Joy Burnford: Thank you. So talking about sort of coming onto workplace support and what organisations can do. We've talked a little bit about whether people should tell their line managers, if that's something somebody wants to do, how do you think they should go about doing that? I guess some women might be concerned about the impact on their career, if they tell their managers that, you know, they're trying for family. Do you have any thoughts around that and how you could approach that subject?

Emma Menzies: I think in terms of how to approach it, a good starting point is to think about what your motivation is for sharing it in the first place. So what is it that you're hoping to achieve from it? What is it that you want to get out of it? I think that's the best way to set everybody up for success, actually, is to think about that in advance. Because if you don't know, then the prospect of disappointment is far greater. But I think once you've asked yourself that, and it could be a whole host of things is, I just want you to know, I don't want anything at the moment, to I need some time off, or I need to adjust my hours or whatever it might be, if you know that you can work backwards to OK, so what exactly do I want to share? How much information? When's the best time, do I wait until I’m so far down? Do I do it before I get into any processes? Who do you want to share it with? How far do you want that information to go? So you can work through all of this, who, what, where, when questions, leading I think normally with well, what is it that you want to achieve first, and build a bit of a plan. And I think it is worth going into those conversations with a little bit of a plan or a clear idea of boundaries so that you don't end up sharing more than perhaps you wanted to share, I felt comfortable to share that you've taken into account the feelings of maybe a partner if there's a partner involved. And yeah, but you can sort of protect the sort of level of disclosure that you're comfortable with.

Joy Burnford: I think that's right. And I think that's a brilliant idea about being clear about how far you want that information to go as well. And being proactive around that. It's really interesting. We talked a little bit about the culture around not telling people you're pregnant until you're 12 weeks. What are your thoughts on that and sort of telling people at work, that you've lost a baby?

Emma Menzies: For me, I don't think it's a helpful culture. As I said earlier, I don't think it's about swinging to everybody has to talk about it either. It's about the being a legitimate choice. I think that culture sort of came about with the 12-week scan, because 85% of miscarriages happen in the first 12 weeks. So once we had the 12 week scan, it was a case of well, you know, you can avoid the uncomfortableness of these conversations, whether that's the uncomfortableness of the person who's doing the telling or the receiving of the information, I'm not sure. But by doing that, it's meant that a lot of people have suffered in silence and had the sort of problems that we've been discussing when it would have been helpful to have talked about it. So I think rather than stigmatise the miscarriages and almost devalue them prior to 12 weeks and stigmatise the sharing and halt grieving, we should make it a possibility that people can talk. And when you translate that to the workplace, as we're saying earlier, we want to make fertility and baby loss as normal as pregnancy and maternity and be able to have those conversations, which also I think means tackling another culture which kind of compounds the problem which is the marginalisation, or the feared or expected marginalisation that will come with sharing that you're on some kind of, you're on the path to motherhood, or parenthood. So to really normalise it, we do need to talk about it. But you also need to be open to supporting that path to parenthood, whatever form that might take, and however long that might take.

Joy Burnford: And we talked a little bit about what you know, if you're going to talk to your manager about the journey you're on. If you're a listener who's listening to this, who is actually a line manager or a colleague of somebody affected, what can you do? What's your advice to people who may not know what to say? Or, you know, how can you show support in the workplace? What's the best strategy?

Emma Menzies: I think the first thing that people want is an acknowledgment. So and it's just a really simple, I'm really sorry to hear that that must be very difficult. It's just that acknowledgement that this is a big and challenging thing that they're experiencing. Even if you don't have personal experience and can't understand it in its entirety, it’s just that acknowledgement and for so many people, it goes such a long way to get that. And to acknowledge that yes, it because it's a big issue for them, then it is an issue in the context of work as well. And then the second part of it is not worrying too much about what to say because the best thing to do is actually listen. And I think it can be a mistake to think that you have to wield in and try and fix it and start sharing platitudes or stories about what's happened to other people. It's to listen, not to assume, not make judgments, not compare. But the probably the only question really need to ask is What do you need, and be prepared for the fact that they might not know yet. So ask what they need. If you can help them meet their needs, then brilliant, consider what you can do to provide support. But to have in mind that it might require a bit of patience, and a big host of flexibility often.

Joy Burnford: What amazing words of advice. Thank you, Emma. That's really brilliant. So if anybody would like to find out more about you and the help you can support, where should they go to find that?

Emma Menzies: Well, I'm on LinkedIn, you can find me on there, my handles just Emma Menzies so should be relatively easy to find. Also, you can take a look at my website, which is https://readysteadycoach.com/.

Joy Burnford: Amazing. And we'll have a chat and perhaps put some other links on the show notes as well for you, for areas where you can get further support. Thank you so much for talking about such a very personal issue for you Emma, and for sharing all your amazing words of wisdom with us today. It's been a pleasure.

Emma Menzies: Thank you very much and thanks for helping raise awareness about it too.

Joy Burnford: And that’s it for this week. Thank you very much for listening and I’ll be back again soon with another Confidence Conversation. If you know anyone who might find this podcast useful, please do pass on the link and it would give me a real confidence boost if you could subscribe, rate and leave a written review (on Apple podcasts here or on Podchaser here). If you like what you’ve heard, sign up for updates where I’ll be sharing tips and notes from each episode and you can send in your ideas for future topics.

And remember you can get 10% off all initial consultations at The Surrey Park Clinic, when you reference this podcast. To book, get in touch at https://thesurreyparkclinic.co.uk/.

Thank you, and until the next time, bye for now.