Not everyone (or barely anyone?) feels like sharing their fertility journey with their friends or relatives, let alone colleagues or boss at work. And yes, I am one of them. I kept our fertility journey secret and shared only with our closest family (and my IG account). Until my boss confronted me with it. Unintentionally. And I had to make a call. Lie or tell the truth and make my boss uncomfortable?
What happened?
So what happened? Me and my husband work at the same company, in the same department, for the same boss. We were over a year into our fertility journey and decided to visit a fertility clinic for further testing. We had one appointment behind us and another one ahead of us.
At work, we have the possibility to request medical leave. So we both did. And that’s when my boss sent me an email how she found it weird that we both requested medical leave for the exact same time and that seemed suspicious.
A short, simple email which made me feel like shit. At that point we had shared our journey with our parents only, but I decided in a second. I don’t have the email anymore, but I replied something within these lines:
Hi XXX, I am sorry this is how you feel and that you cannot trust me after all these years working here. I wish I didn’t have to share this, but we both requested the medical leave at the same time because we are struggling to conceive and we have an appointment at the fertility clinic for further testing. Hopefully that clarifies it enough.
Two options
I received a Skype call within minutes (it was during Covid and we were working from home only) and it was obvious how uncomfortable my boss was. She was all apologetic, trying to explain she didn’t mean to offend us in any way.
Sometimes on the fertility journey we have two options – lie or make people uncomfortable. In the beginning I used to lie, with time more and more often I was opting for the second one. 😉
Holidays are ahead of us and uncomfortable questions can often come, here’s an IG post with some suggested replies that might come in handy.
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