Hey everyone! I had a hard time deciding what to write about tonight. I had a few ideas, but none have really hit me as something I really want to write about. However, I went with one that I thought was easy to relate to and that I could talk about quickly and easily – balancing work and fertility treatments.

Maybe this is just me, but when I started this process it really seemed like the fertility doctors had no idea that we have a life outside of this. You don’t have much notice of when MAJOR appointments will be and you have to be able to take off work pretty quickly. You also have to be able to answer the phone all the time in the middle of the day, or be willing for stuff to be left on voicemail. Leaving a voicemail is fine by me, except if you have any questions after, you have to wait until the next day to call them back. Their phones (at least at my doctor’s office) are on from 8am-4pm. Literally the exact hours I work. Not very helpful. Also, as a teacher, it would be nice to have a bit more notice sometimes than I get.

Anyway, the only way I have figured out how to juggle these two big things is mostly through the same way I’ve juggled anything in this whole process: get yourself a good support system!

Having a few substitutes that I trust and can contact easily has helped immensely with not knowing when I will need to be off. Luckily, I can usually get one of them to sub for me within a few days notice and they are such good subs I don’t feel like I need to spend a long time writing up sub plans for them.

Also, having an awesome co-teacher (and awesome long-term sub for my co-teacher at the moment) has been huge too! On days when I can’t get one of those great and trustworthy substitutes, my co-teacher has been so awesome in covering my class or just helping out the random sub that ends up in the room that day. Her (or her sub) have both also watched my class so I could listen to voicemails, call back the doctor, etc.

The other HUGE part of this is putting work second. This is hard to do if you have a demanding job. I’m not saying that I have the world’s hardest job by any means, but it is definitely demanding at times. I have lessons to plan each day, I have to make sure my student ‘outcomes’ are posted correctly each day, I have to grade a TON of papers, plus I have to actually teach roughly 70 children a day (and deal with their parents!) This is a lot for every single day, and there is definitely other random paperwork, meetings, emails, etc. that I end up dealing with pretty often.

I used to get really fixated on all of this and let myself stress about it. Now, I still definitely make work a priority, but I have decided to put it second to my fertility treatments. I have spent this year more focused on my appointments, medicines, testing, etc. so that I feel more organized about it. In fact, I usually call doctors during my planning period to order medicine, get test results, and ask questions. I still do my other work during that time, too, but I make my phone calls first. I also know that I can always stay after school after my students leave to do some work, but I can’t make my phone calls then.

Your life and future is more important than any job you have. No matter how much work you think you have, or how much you love your job – you need to put yourself first. 

Also, even though during fertility treatments you have to go up for “monitoring” frequently, I am lucky to be able to do this before work most times. The office I go to opens the doors at 6:45am and starts doing blood work at 7:00am. If I have to go on a work day, I leave my house at 6:00am to be one of the first ones there and wait outside of their office door for them to unlock the door. They generally book a ton of people for each appointment slot (I’d say probably at least 10 people per every 15 minute slot). Then they take people first come-first serve in the order of the appointment slots. Since I have learned this, I always make my appointments for 7:00am and try to be the first one there. This way, I am usually out of the office by 7:15 or 7:30. The only days it really affects my arrival to work is the mornings we have meetings – Tuesdays and Thursdays. On those days, we are supposed to be at work by 7:45. However, as I said in the first part of this post – my support system is awesome. My principal knows what I am going through, and as long as I give him a heads up, he is fine with me being 15-20 minutes late on those days. It definitely makes for a long day, but in the long run – it will all be worth it.

As always, thanks for reading my posts! If anyone reading has ideas of what they’d like to hear about, feel free to message me on my instagram (@_ivfgotthis) or comment on this post!

xoxo