Scared to go for promotion during IVF?

There's a conversation I have, in some form, with almost every woman I work with.

It usually comes up early. Before we've got to the strategy, before we've looked at what's actually possible. She'll mention something almost in passing. It's a project she didn't put her hand up for, a promotion she decided wasn't the right time, a conversation with her manager she's been putting off for months.

And then she'll say, "I just thought it made sense to wait and see."

I recognise it immediately. Not because it's unusual, but because I've heard it so many times. And because I've said it myself.

Waiting and seeing is what fertility treatment does to a career. Not dramatically, nobody wakes up one day and decides to stop being ambitious. It happens in stages with a delayed decision here, a deferral there, a bit of procrastination. Each one completely rational and explainable.

The project she handed to her colleague because she might be mid-cycle. The promotion she didn't apply for because what if it happened and then treatment worked and then maternity leave and then — the calculations get complicated very quickly. The conversation with her manager she's been putting off because she doesn't know what she wants to say yet or what she's really asking for.

None of these are wrong decisions. In fact some of them are exactly right. But the ones that are made from fear rather than strategy, those are the ones that stay with her. The ones she looks back on and wonders about.

Fear feels like logic when you're exhausted and uncertain and in a swirl of hormones and trying to hold everything together at once. When you're mid-cycle, a promotion can feel like terrible timing. When you're in the two-week wait, putting your hand up for a big project feels reckless. So you wait. And you see. And the career quietly shrinks around you while you're looking the other way.

I know because I've been there. I made some of those decisions myself and I'd make some of them again. But I'd make them differently, from a place of knowing, not from a place of just trying to get through the week.

I was promoted during fertility treatment. Not because I had it all figured out, and not because I ignored what was happening to me. But because I had someone in my corner helping me see which decisions were coming from a place of agency and which ones were coming from survival mode. That distinction changed everything.

That's what I do with the women I coach. Not talk them out of their decisions, they're perfectly capable of making them. But help them see which ones are coming from a place of confidence and self-belief, and which ones are coming from stress and exhaustion and saying no because it feels easier than saying yes. And make sure they know the difference before they decide.

If you're scared to go for the promotion right now, that feeling deserves to be examined, not just acted on. Sometimes the answer is that the timing is genuinely wrong and here's how to make that a strategic decision rather than a fearful one. Sometimes the answer is that you're more capable than you think, and here's how to go for it in a way that protects you.

Both are valid. The only thing that isn't is making the decision without knowing which one you're actually making.

If you'd like to talk it through, you’re welcome to book a free call here.