Navigating Work During IVF: A Career and Fertility Coach on Rights, Routines and Protecting Yourself

Jen Elworthy, Career and Fertility Coach and Director of Engagement at Fertility Matters at Work, in conversation with Jen Walpole Nutrition.

First, tell us a little about you

I'm Jen Elworthy, a Career and Fertility Coach and Director of Engagement at Fertility Matters at Work. Before I moved into this work, I spent more than twenty years in senior marketing roles across the BBC, Hearst, News UK and Freesat so I understand what it feels like to hold a demanding career together while something enormous is happening in your personal life that nobody around the meeting table can see.

My route into coaching came through experience. I went through IVF, I had a miscarriage and two ectopic pregnancies, and I learned what it is to parent after loss. I describe what I do now as coaching from the scar, not the wound, because I am no longer in the thick of it, and that bit of distance is what allows me to sit alongside the women I work with rather than disappear into their story.

I’m a Certified Professional Coach, and Emotions Coaching Practioner, and was Highly Commended for both Best Fertility Coach and Best Fertility Advocate at the European Fertility Society Awards in 2025, and I front the Stylist and Tommy's Every Loss Counts campaign. Most of my days are now spent doing two things: helping women protect their careers and their confidence through treatment, and helping organisations build workplaces where people do not have to choose between the two.

What are people's rights around taking time off during fertility treatment, and what should they be aware of?

This is the part that surprises almost everyone, so it is worth saying plainly. In the UK there is currently no statutory right to time off, paid or unpaid, specifically for fertility treatment. That can feel deflating when you are staring at a calendar full of scans and blood tests you did not choose the timing of, or when you feel poorly from all the medication and your hormones going wild and really need a day off. What it means in practice is that your time off usually depends on your employer's own policy, on using annual or unpaid leave, sick leave or on your appointments being treated the same way any other medical appointment would be.

However, once an embryo has been transferred you are legally considered pregnant, which means you are protected from pregnancy and maternity discrimination and entitled to paid time off for antenatal appointments, with that protection continuing for a period even if the cycle is not successful.

Under the Employment Rights Act 2025, bereavement leave has been extended to cover pregnancy loss before twenty-four weeks, including miscarriage, ectopic pregnancy and unsuccessful embryo transfer. It’s worth checking the government website to be clear on your rights.

Also, find out whether your organisation has a fertility policy, because a growing number now do and you may have more support available than you realise. Knowing your rights is not about preparing for a fight, it is about walking into those conversations from a place of information rather than apology.

What was the biggest challenge when navigating your career progression during your own fertility struggles?

The hardest part was not any single appointment or even any single piece of bad news. It was the invisible load of carrying it all at once, and the way that load slowly wore down my confidence.

Treatment runs on a timetable you can’t negotiate with. Your body, your clinic and your cycle are setting the agenda, while work still expects you fully present, fully ambitious and fully available. I found myself making smaller of my own plans without noticing I was doing it. Opportunities would come up and a voice would start running the calculations. Can I take this on? What if I need time off? What if I fall apart in front of people who only know the capable version of me? That narrowing of what you believe you are capable of is, to my mind, the real cost, because it outlasts the treatment itself.

I talk a lot with clients about what I call the postponed self, the version of you that you keep promising to return to once this is all over. Career progression during fertility treatment is rarely lost in one dramatic moment. It slips away in a series of small, understandable retreats that make sense at the time. The work I do now is largely about helping women notice those retreats in real time and decide, on purpose, which ones are genuinely protective and which ones are fear hiding behind a seemingly sensible decision.

How did you balance work while still focusing on your nutrition for IVF, without the overwhelm?

The honest answer is that the last thing you need when you are managing treatment and a career is another perfectionist project to fail at. I needed to do my best to nourish my body without causing extra stress.

What worked was making the supportive choice the easy choice, so that it did not rely on willpower or energy I had already spent elsewhere. Small, repeatable habits that fit the life I actually had, rather than the simpler life I wished I had. The principle I would offer anyone is to build in forgiveness from the start. One disappointing lunch grabbed at a desk is not a failure, it’s just a busy Tuesday. The women who sustain good nutrition through treatment are not the strictest, they are the kindest to themselves when a day goes sideways, because that kindness is what lets them carry on the next day instead of abandoning the whole thing.

This is exactly where someone like Jen Walpole comes in, because having expert guidance takes the mental load off you. You are not trying to research and decide and execute all at once while everything else is happening. You are simply following a plan that someone qualified has already thought through, which is a quieter kind of relief than people expect. I know Jen is a big believer in adding things into your diet rather than restricting yourself. I hate cow’s milk, which clinics often recommend as a short cut to adding protein to your diet, especially for vegetarians like me. Instead I would take a hemp smoothie with loads of cacao powder and blended dates to work. It looked like mud so my colleagues teased me about it, but it was delicious. I would rarely go anywhere without a pot of nuts either, and a big bottle of water. I love chocolate so there was no way I was giving that up, dark chocolate became a daily pick me up straight from my desk drawer.

Any tips for avoiding after-work drinks or events when it is part of your role or culture?

This can become a big deal in my client’s brains but so often nobody else really notices you’re not drinking or you’re turning down a few events. I worked in the media when I was having IVF so after work drinks were a big thing. I might say something like, "I'm not drinking this week but I'd love a coffee if you have time tomorrow morning.”. It lets you decline the drink without inviting a conversation you do not want to have. You can show your face for the first half hour and leave before the questions get personal. You can also redirect the relationship-building into settings that suit you better, a lunch, a walking one-to-one, so you are still seen and still in the room where it matters, without spending an evening managing both a glass of wine you are not drinking and a story you are not telling.

The reframe I share with clients is that choosing your treatment over a particular event is not opting out of your career. It is making a considered decision about where your finite energy goes this week. Said with a little confidence, "I'll catch the next one" is a complete sentence.

How can people explain their healthy eating without telling the whole team they are going through fertility treatment?

You owe no one a full explanation, and the trick is to offer a short, friendly answer that closes the subject rather than opening it. Over-explaining is what invites the follow-up questions, so the briefer and more relaxed you are, the less curiosity you generate.

Lines that work well include, "I'm just trying to feel a bit better in myself at the moment," or "I'm eating a bit cleaner for a while, nothing dramatic." Both are true, both are warm, and neither hands anyone a thread to pull. If someone pushes, a light "honestly, I'm just being a bit boring about it this month" tends to land the conversation safely.

What I want women to hold onto is that a boundary does not require a justification to be valid. You are allowed to eat in a way that supports your body without putting your private life on the table next to your lunch. The confidence is in the brevity. Otherwise it becomes like Joey in Friends with his raccoon lie!

And finally, any tips for those having to do injections while at work?

This is one of the most surreal parts of treatment, injecting yourself in a work toilet and then walking into a meeting as if nothing has happened, so the first thing I would say is to be gentle with yourself about how strange it feels.

Practically, preparation removes most of the stress. Do a dry run at home so the actual moment is muscle memory rather than something you are working out under pressure. Scout a private space in advance, whether that is a first aid room, a quiet office or, at a push, an accessible toilet, so you are not searching when the clock is ticking. Keep a small, discreet kit with you, and set a discreet phone reminder so timing doesn’t become one more thing to track in an already full head.

Two more things. If you have one trusted person at work, even just to know where you are going for ten minutes, it can lift a surprising amount of the weight. And give yourself a moment afterwards. A few slow breaths before you rejoin the day are not indulgent, they are the bare minimum of looking after yourself in the middle of something hard.

I also love EMLA cream and used to apply loads of it under a plaster ready for my evening progesterone injection.

Jen Elworthy is a Career and Fertility Coach who supports women navigating their careers alongside fertility treatment, IVF and loss, and Director of Engagement at Fertility Matters at Work. You can find out more about her career and fertility coaching and work with her directly.