Most people going through fertility treatment are doing it while working full time. There’s no pause button on rent, deadlines, or career momentum just because you’re also growing follicles. While the treatment schedule is demanding—early-morning monitoring, blood draws, time-sensitive medication adjustments, and procedures you can’t reschedule—it’s temporary.
With clear boundaries and preparation, you can balance your career with your fertility treatment.
Telling Your Employer—Or Not
If you decide to tell your manager or HR, you get to choose how much detail you share. You don’t owe anyone a diagnosis or a recap of your medical history.
A conversation could look something like this:
“I have a series of time-sensitive medical appointments over the next few weeks that are based on my doctor’s schedule. I’ll do my best to minimize disruption, but I want you to be aware so we can plan accordingly.”
You might find your manager surprisingly flexible once they realize the situation is temporary. And looping them in early can reduce your stress. Staying silent may lead colleagues to fill in the blanks themselves—and things can get awkward if they assume your appointments are job interviews.
If you’d rather keep it private, that’s your right—and in New York, it’s a legally protected one. You can frame appointments as recurring medical needs without specifying what they’re for. Having a trusted workplace ally who knows the basics can help you manage nurse calls or mid-day schedule changes without cluing in your entire office.
Whatever you decide, be sure to check your employer’s fertility coverage. You can usually find this information through your benefits portal or HR department.
Managing Appointments Around a Full-Time Schedule
During the stimulation phase of an IVF or egg freezing cycle, monitoring is roughly every two days for 10-14 days. Most clinics, including Extend, schedule blood draws and ultrasounds early in the morning so patients can get to work afterward. Appointments are typically quick, but you should plan for 60 to 90 minutes on monitoring mornings, factoring in wait time and travel.
Consider blocking your mornings. If you have control over your calendar, avoid scheduling critical meetings or presentations before 10 a.m. during the stim phase. Treat those early morning hours as a mindful entry period, and front load your focused work into the afternoon instead.
Some days may require you to be fully absent from work. Egg retrieval involves sedation and recovery, so you should plan to take the day off, and possibly the next day depending on how you respond to treatment. Embryo transfer is a shorter procedure, but many patients take the rest of the day off.
All bodies respond differently to medication, so flag the possibility of short-term changes with your team ahead of time.
Every day during the stim phase, your clinic will call, usually in the early-to-mid afternoon, with your next medication dosage and whether you need to come into the clinic the following morning. Missing this call can delay your cycle. If you’re regularly in meetings during that window, set a daily alert or designate someone your clinic can reach if you’re unavailable.
Staying Ahead of Medications
Most fertility medications are injected at a specific time each evening, but depending on your protocol, some injections may need to happen during the workday. If that’s the case, you’ll need a private space like a single-stall bathroom or empty conference room and a few uninterrupted minutes. Keep your medications in an insulated pouch if they need refrigeration, and set a phone alarm so you don’t lose track of time in a meeting.
If you work in a hybrid or remote-friendly environment, lean on that flexibility. A few work-from-home days per week can reduce the pressure of scheduling and daytime injections. And if you’re choosing a clinic or deciding between locations, proximity makes a big difference when you’re going in every other morning.
What to Expect Physically and Emotionally
Hormonal stimulation medications can cause bloating, fatigue, headaches, and general discomfort, especially in the later days of the stim phase as your follicles grow. Side effects are manageable for most people, but you should still plan to take it easy.
After retrieval, some patients bounce back within a day, while others need two to three days before getting back to normal. If you know what to expect, you can pad your workflow accordingly.
Hormones can also amplify mood swings, making your professional demands feel more exhausting. You might find that work is grounding because it provides structure and keeps your mind from spinning on outcomes you can’t control. But certain days can be harder than you expect, and you never know which days you’ll get in the same cycle.
Your treatment window is a good time to pull back wherever you can outside of work. That might mean delegating household tasks, reducing social commitments, and protecting your evenings for rest and relaxation. Your body is putting in major work during stimulation, and recovery time is a must. If you can offload anything—meal prep, errands, cleaning—to a partner or family member, do it with zero guilt.
Your Rights in New York
New York has some of the strongest protections in the country for people pursuing fertility treatment.
Anti-Discrimination Protection
Under New York Labor Law § 203-e, employers are prohibited from discriminating or retaliating against employees based on their reproductive health decisions. That explicitly includes fertility treatment.
Your employer can’t access your personal medical information about your reproductive health choices without your written consent. Your decision to pursue IVF, egg freezing, or any other fertility treatment is protected from workplace retaliation, which means your employer can’t change your compensation, assignments, or employment status based on that decision.
Paid Parental Leave
As of January 1, 2025, New York is the first state in the country to guarantee 20 hours of paid prenatal leave per year, separate from your existing sick leave or PTO. This applies to every private-sector employee regardless of company size, seniority, or status (full-time vs. part-time).
The New York Department of Labor has confirmed that this leave covers fertility treatments, including IVF. You can take it in hourly increments—like for quick monitoring appointments—and your employer can’t ask for details about specific procedures.
Insurance Coverage
If you’re on a fully insured large-group plan in New York (employers with 100 or more employees), your plan is required to cover up to three IVF cycles, including medications. All commercial plans—individual, small-group, and large group—must cover fertility preservation when a medical treatment could cause infertility.
The law also prohibits insurers from discriminating based on age, sex, sexual orientation, marital status, or gender identity. Self-funded ERISA plans follow different rules, so it’s always worth checking with your benefits administrator.
If you’re receiving treatment at Extend, we can help you explore your insurance options.
Federal Protections
The Pregnant Workers Fairness Act requires employers to provide reasonable accommodations for conditions related to pregnancy, childbirth, and related medical conditions. The EEOC’s implementing regulations define “related medical conditions” broadly enough to include fertility treatments.
This can mean scheduling flexibility for appointments or temporary adjustments to your workload during a treatment cycle.
The Hardest Part is Also the Shortest
Balancing fertility treatments with your career can feel incredibly draining. It’s a demanding cycle of appointments, medications, and the quiet tension of waiting for news, all while keeping your job.
When it feels all-consuming, remember that the most intense phases are usually brief. And through it all, New York gives you a safety net. You get to decide how much your colleagues know (or don’t know) about your fertility treatment.
Ready to get started? Schedule a consultation with one of our providers to talk through your options, including how treatment fits into your work schedule. We offer early morning monitoring beginning at 7 AM every day.
