Leah’s story

People will be people and ask their usual questions or say things without realising the impact of the words. An example of this, is a colleague asked me my age and if I had a family a week after starting a new role in a private company. I had not long accepted I wouldn’t have my own family and found it embarrassing and scary to talk about with others I didn’t know. I explained ‘We can’t have children’ and she came back with ‘37 and you don’t have kids! I couldn’t live without my boys’.

This ignited a fire in me, I felt so defensive and I wanted to scream as she asked in a front of a very busy office only reinforcing my fears further. I then felt I needed to do something about this as I was sick of people spurting out comments like that. I felt I couldn’t talk to my colleagues at work and so I decide to start back on Facebook and create a profile around childlessness and supporting others.

I started volunteering for the More to life group and shared posts from CNBC groups online, this then prompted my colleagues at work to ask questions or they simply didn’t talk to me about their families. I didn’t stay with the private company for long and decided to move on and started working for South tees University Hospital.

Victoria’s story

I changed jobs back in 2017, moving from one NHS trust to the South tees Trust, taking on a training job, for which I qualified in 2019. Whilst moving from one trust who knew about my CNBC (Childless not by choice) status to another that did not, opened my eyes to how I would integrate into a new workplace. This presented a few challenges ranging from who do I tell and how do I tell someone about my CNBC status.

My 2 clinical leads were the first to know, both of whom were good with their responses and in doing so made me feel at ease. I took the direct approach, and whilst it was shocking to hear, they were willing to be accommodating. I have always been of the mindset that I should not have to explain myself and my CNBC status. If someone asks, fine, I will be selective in what they need to know. Knowing I was comfortable with my CNBC status and being open about it has certainly helped me on this journey. It is other individuals' responses and educating the wider public about the impact of CNBC in the workplace.

Whilst going through this journey alone, I was seeking any useful advice from an online CNBC community and got to know a fellow CNBC colleague through work, the lovely Leah, and together we developed the trust support group.

Our story so far…

So, South Tees Trust set up a staff service called the Freedom to speak Up guardians, allowing anyone with any queries regarding work related issues to seek advice from themselves. They were also very forthcoming in representing minority groups, including BAME and LGBT+. At this stage though, there was no representation for CNBC colleagues.

After various discussions with HR and the guardians, and conducting a staff survey, it was recognised that there was a need for a support group for CNBC colleagues. A Haven to offload with likeminded people, knowing there was no judgement and putting the world to rights .

We share some ideas on how we can support others to understand our situations, whilst also raising awareness of the medical condition that is infertility and not the stigma of being Childless not by choice. At some stage though, I am sure there will be some involvement with policy development.

An intranet page has also been created with various links to different resources to support colleagues and a page for Managers to look at to gain insightful information on how to have difficult conversations with CNBC colleagues and to support our hard working colleagues.

So far, it is working out well. It is early days, but given this journey originally started during Covid, I could not be happier with what I/we have achieved.

Vicky and Leah

Photo by Matthias Zomer of Pexels