Melissa Doyle is co-presenter of Australia’s highest-rating breakfast program, Sunrise. One of the most popular faces on television, Melissa is also the proud mother of Nicholas, 6 and Talia Grace, 3. Jo Scard has over 15 years’ experience in political communication, journalism, government relations and public affairs. A political consultant at global consultancy Gavin Anderson + Company, Jo also has two young children – Marlow, 5 and Frida, 2.

The Working Mother’s Survival Guide

Your Complete Guide to Managing Life and Work with a New Bay

By Melissa Doyle, Jo Scard

Allen & Unwin

Copyright © 2007 Melissa Doyle and Jo Scard
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-74175-034-8

Contents

Preface,
Introduction,
Chapter 1 Preconception,
Chapter 2 So, you’re pregnant,
Chapter 3 Pregnancy and preparing for your baby,
Chapter 4 Maternity leave,
Chapter 5 How to cope,
Chapter 6 Health — you and your baby,
Chapter 7 Childcare,
Chapter 8 Returning to work,
Chapter 9 The law and working mothers,
Chapter 10 Baby etiquette,
Chapter 11 Budgets and the future,
Where to from here?,
Resources and references,
Acknowledgements,

CHAPTER 1

preconception

In this chapter:

• What to do if you’re trying to conceive. How to de-stress, improve your chances, and organize all your medical stuff.

• Some simple advice from GPs, gynaecologists and obstetricians to help you along the way.

• Embarking on the IVF journey. The costs, the risks and the emotional roller-coaster.

As working mums with lots of friends who have done the hard yards of years of conception attempts — some via IVF — we know this preconception time of your life can be really hard. There’s a lot to be said about being as chilled out as you can, being informed, getting the best advice you can find, and treating your body well. But ultimately go with whatever works for you. Your body is amazing, so trust it and, hopefully, it will inevitably work it all out.

‘Pregnancy is completely different for every single woman. For me, it was rather predictable, I was the pregnant woman they use in the text books. When the book told me things would happen, they did. Pregnant the regular way — off the pill, lots of sex (remember those days?), then bingo — excited and blossoming. We bought a bigger car, renovated the bathroom and bought everything in white to cover both contingencies. I was blessed with two happy, healthy, smooth pregnancies, calm natural deliveries and two healthy babies.

I tell you this not because I was special, because there were days when I felt like crap, times I was so tired I could fall over (in fact during pregnancy number two I did, and broke my arm), times I stressed, times when weight piled on. I tell you this because pregnancy doesn’t always have to be scary for everyone. Some people struggle to get pregnant, others don’t. Some get sick, others don’t. Some hate pregnancy, others like me love it. I embraced every single moment, and every little hurdle — which is probably easy to say. But trust me, I give thanks every day as I genuinely know how lucky I am. – Mel

‘I was thirty-seven when I attempted to conceive my first child. Even my boss Brian, a father of three himself, had begun to lecture me on how I should be ‘getting on with it’. Having spent my most fertile years studying, travelling or working I felt that I may (just may) have left it too late. I started to worry — and a level of panic set in. My game plan had always been: ‘I can have it all’ (the career and the kids).

But really I knew the statistics were against me. I panicked some more. So I started to research. I treated the event a bit like training for the ‘Conception Olympics’ — and I’m not talking marathon sex sessions, I mean the big ‘D-ET-O-X’. I turned to preconception ‘gurus’. No alcohol. No coffee for eighteen months. Only the occasional, very occasional, cup of tea. I took folate for months longer than I actually needed. I went to an acupuncturist specializing in conception who gave me a ‘chakra cleanse’ and prescribed the use of a ‘Moxa’ stick (a cigar-sized incense stick which you can get from any Chinese herbalist) that I was to ignite and wave in a clockwise direction over my uterus (which I did). I started doing more exercise. Yoga. Swimming. Eating the right foods. Vitamins. ‘Detoxing’.

My partner, now husband, tolerated all this. In the end it took only three months and unknowingly I conceived. To even out all the ‘chakra balancing’, I spent a weekend in Portugal followed by a week travelling for work in Europe drinking a reasonable quantity of good red wine when I was just pregnant but didn’t know it. My son Marlow is now almost six and happy and healthy. My second child, Frida, was conceived in one month — in an environment with a reasonable amount of toxins, a fair amount of coffee, some wine and not that much exercise.

This time I was forty, but more relaxed about my body’s ability to deal with pregnancy. She was an experiment in sex-selection — the idea being that you attempt to have a girl by conceiving four days before you ovulate. (To have a boy you try to conceive on the day you ovulate — the logic being that boy sperm swims fast but dies quickly and girl sperm swims slowly and lives longer!). We were successful and I now proudly tell anyone who cares to listen about this old wives’ tale method. – Jo

‘Abbi Stove, nurse, 34

When I turned thirty my husband and I started to try for a baby, went off the pill for twelve months, carefully documented my daily temperature and period cycle.

Due to a history of irregularity I went and saw a gynaecologist. The first thing he said was ‘forget the temperature, you’re just stressing yourselves out’. We walked out of his office, with me booked in for surgery and Andrew booked in for some sperm tests.

I had the clean out, holes drilled in the ovaries, endometriosis removed, and my tubes cleared. Andrew did his duty and produced the tests. So we went back to the doctor and discovered Andrew had a low sperm count and due to my polycystic ovaries our best chance of conception would be to try some fertility drugs and a process called Intrauterine Insemination (IUI), commonly know as artificial insemination. I started taking the required tablets and began to experience hot flushes.

It was then time for the trigger injection that would cause the follicles to release their eggs within twenty-four hours and then back in the doctor’s office having Andrew’s sperm introduced into my uterus. We attempted this twice with no success, our next step was In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) — Intracytoplasmic Sperm Injection (ICSI). This is the process that you often see on television where they show a sperm being injected into an egg. This was rather scary so we started to Google like crazy and read up on everything we could. We talked to friends and found out they were doing the same thing, but were keeping it close to their chest (fear of failure is a huge issue). It was amazing how many people around us were doing IVF (we have since been informed that approximately forty-five per cent of couples will have trouble conceiving).

We took four weeks off the program over Christmas and started again in January. First I started on the tablets to bring on a period then a nasal spray to shut down my irregular cycle, then the morning needle in the belly to stimulate egg production, (an injection in the bum to prepare the eggs for release, an injection in the arm to put me to sleep, and finally a huge needle to harvest the eggs). Anyway, we ended up being pregnant first go. This was amazing. We had done it. Nine weeks later our world came crashing down when the pregnancy came to an abrupt end. We now understood the emotional roller-coaster that people warned us about — from total happiness to despair in less than fifteen minutes.

We took a break for a few months to rebuild emotionally and financially and then started on yet more fertilization drugs in preparation for some of the embryos that we had frozen after the first IVF collection cycle. Pumped up and ready for the next phase, knowing that success was only a matter of time, we arrived at the hospital on the morning of the embryo transfer. Once again we crashed; none of our embryos had survived the thawing process.

Again we waited a few more months. It was Christmas again. Things were progressing well. Except for the odd side effect like raging hormones, no sense of smell, and a painful sensation that I can only describe as like carrying ten million golf balls on each of my ovaries. Unfortunately this one didn’t take, but our doctor was positive and started us straightaway on different drugs for a frozen transfer. We were also given a sheet of paper with the next round of costs highlighted for us. I could tell Andrew was near breaking point. The emotional strain of seeing me go through all of this was too much and he finally snapped.

We stopped the program and went and sought counselling; this IVF roller-coaster had physically and emotionally almost destroyed us and we didn’t want it to destroy our marriage. I’m glad that Andrew finally said ‘stop’— I hadn’t realized the effect it was having on us both and our marriage. We stopped IVF for two years. This helped me work through the feelings of why us, why me? Eventually we didn’t shy away from couples who were having kids, it took some time but we eventually got there.

We were almost accepting of our fate that we would be D.I.N.Ks for the rest of our lives. I had convinced Andrew that we should buy a boat and he was trying to convince me that we needed a sports car to tow it. I started my new career as a graduate nurse and Andrew started a new job that would hopefully let us live a comfortable lifestyle.

Time went by and my period had not shown up after forty-five days. I became a bit suspicious, but wasn’t too excited as forty-five days wasn’t too unusual for me. I had picked up a vomiting bug at work and the doctors said I wouldn’t feel right for about three weeks. Three weeks passed and I was still feeling nauseated and tired. I went out for my birthday dinner, drank margaritas and beer, then the following weekend a girlfriend and I went to a Korean bath house for a day of hot and cold spas, saunas and full body massage. That week I found myself standing in the supermarket debating about getting a pregnancy test or sanitary pads. I got home and did the test — the positive came up before the control. It’s a weird feeling being happy and scared at the same time. I phoned Andrew and he just about cried, passed out and jumped for joy all at the same time.

I had a beautiful healthy baby boy, Oscar, by caesarean. Now its time to stop and smell the roses and enjoy our miracle.

What had changed? Is there something about stopping, accepting reality and moving on, that makes the body do what it’s supposed to do? Or does life just like to keep you on your toes when you start to get too comfortable? It was an incredibly hard decision to stop IVF. When you’re doing IVF, one of the most annoying things you will hear from family, friends and acquaintances is ‘Maybe it will happen naturally if you just stop thinking about it’. Every person who has ever said this to us has never had to go through an IVF cycle — and really needs to think more before opening their mouth. But wait, what about us. We gave up, we planned for a new life, we stopped thinking about it.

My boat and Andrew’s sports car have turned into a nursery and a need for more storage space under the house. But who really needs all that stuff anyway!

Is it all over? (your career that is)

Apart from the huge decision to have children, one of the big concerns for working women planning to start a family is: what impact will having a baby have on my career or work prospects? Years ago women couldn’t even be married and remain in some parts of the workforce and for others when they had a baby it was just assumed they’d stop work. Well not anymore. Women have choices. Not as many as men, it’s fair to say, but a lot more than we used to.

Having a baby shouldn’t affect your career or work prospects. There are legal safeguards to ensure your employment rights are protected, and you can read more about them in Chapter 9. If you can handle a slightly different pace for a while, slow down and take a step sideways rather than up the ladder — then you’ll cope with it. It boils down to one fairly ‘simple’ conundrum: what’s more important right now, having a baby or your job or career? Only you can know the answer to that. But one word of advice: don’t let worry about your career or future job prospects or questions of timing eat you up, slow you down or hinder your preconception attempts. There often is no perfect time to have a baby and as we age our bodies will often play havoc with our plans anyway. What follows is advice to help you get over the line.

Preconception medical care

Visiting the doctor used to be something you did after you’d found out that you were pregnant. These days many doctors and health providers recommend you schedule an appointment before you conceive.

As soon as you are thinking about having a baby organize a visit to your doctor. The appointment is to discuss your general health, any problems you may have conceiving because of your medical history, prescription (or non-prescription) drugs you may be taking and how they may affect the baby — and importantly, how to take care of yourself in the weeks when you may be pregnant, but don’t know for sure.

Your doctor will also talk with you about what prenatal vitamins you may need to take and about which medical and alternative therapies are safe during the preconception time. They’ll recommend that you begin taking folate, a vitamin that will reduce the likelihood of your baby having spina bifida. They will probably also do a blood test to check if your immunizations are up-to-date and if they’re not, they’ll recommend you get vaccinated before you conceive. In particular, rubella during pregnancy can cause miscarriage, stillbirth or birth defects. All this is best done a few months before you conceive.

The doctor may suggest you consult a genetic counsellor if you are over thirty-five, if there are serious medical conditions in either your or your partner’s families, if you know that you or your partner are carriers of genetically inherited diseases, if you are related to your partner, or if you have had repeated miscarriages.

Questions to ask your doctor

• What prescription, over-the-counter or herbal medications are safe to take when I’m trying to conceive?

• What changes to my and my partner’s diet should we consider?

• Do I need to think about making changes to my work practices — such as exposure to chemicals or cutting back on my hours?

• Are there any activities that I should curtail while trying to conceive (eg. nonprescription drugs or extreme sports)?

• How will any pre-existing medical conditions affect my chances of conceiving?

• How do I know when I’m most fertile, when I’m ovulating and when I have the best chance of conception?

• How might hereditary diseases affect our baby? And should we consider seeing a genetic counsellor?

• Will having a sexually transmitted disease (STD) affect my ability to conceive or have a vaginal delivery?

Your pre-pregnancy checklist

Dr Ronald McCoy, Royal Australian College of General Practitioners, provides guidelines for your pre-pregnancy health:

• Take simple health measures before you become pregnant. This can help prevent some serious health problems for you and your baby. This is especially important for women who are older or who may have medical conditions requiring specific advice and management, such as diabetes, hypertension, and epilepsy.

• Visit your GP before becoming pregnant. They can offer advice and check on immunizations.

• Take a folic acid supplement, which will help reduce the risk of serious diseases of the spinal cord, such as spina bifida. Folic acid is available over the counter or from your doctor. This should be taken at least one or two months before you conceive. (Note that most preconception multivitamins have the correct amount of folate included in them.)

• You may want to see a genetic counsellor if there are genetic conditions in your family. Your general practitioner can arrange a referral. There is screening available for a range of genetically inherited conditions in addition to Down syndrome.

• Prevent infectious diseases. You should have a blood test to screen for immunity to rubella (German measles) to avoid serious birth defects in your baby. Your doctor will check for a past history of chicken pox or related conditions. If there has been no evidence of past infection, you’ll be offered a vaccination for measles, mumps and rubella at least one month before you plan to conceive.

• Live a healthy lifestyle. The use of tobacco, alcohol and other drugs by pregnant women can cause adverse health outcomes for your baby. Tobacco affects the growth of the foetus and women need to stop smoking during if not before pregnancy. Alcohol and other drug use is dangerous for the developing foetus and women should stop using drugs, and limit, or preferably stop, drinking alcohol during pregnancy.

• Avoid listeria. Listeria is an illness caused by eating dairy and processed meats contaminated by bacteria and can cause miscarriage, stillbirth, and premature birth. The risk is very low — one in every fifteen thousand women contract listeria in pregnancy across Australia. You can avoid listeria by following sensible and hygienic food preparation and storage rules.

(Continues…)Excerpted from The Working Mother’s Survival Guide by Melissa Doyle, Jo Scard. Copyright © 2007 Melissa Doyle and Jo Scard. Excerpted by permission of Allen & Unwin.
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