Welcome
About you
- You need to figure out how to help your company differentiate itself in the marketplace by offering an ultra-competitive, incredibly-progressive, and of course — enter your CEO — fiscally-responsible total rewards and benefits program.
- The competition for ANY talent — nevermind TOP talent — is fierce in today’s job market with the number of job openings still outnumbers the number of job seekers by more than 1.3 million!
- Job seekers today are only passively considering a change, meaning it’s going to take a sweet deal to get them to leave the comfort of their current position behind and take a risk on your company.
- Designing a robust benefits program that attracts all demographics is tough. You have to use all your ingenuity to come up with a plan that appeals to your multi-generational workforce.
Right now, all eyes are on you, Benefits Manager! Now is your time to shine!
Now is your opportunity to showcase the true power that a strategic, thoughtful, and valuable benefits program can have on your organization’s ability to attract and retain top talent.
With your creativity, and even in these less than ideal market conditions, you can:- Attract and retain the best talent
- Improve diversity and inclusion
- Portray a family- and female-friendly employer brand
- Increase overall employee satisfaction
- Support employees' financial, mental, and physical well-being
- Reduce high-risk pregnancies and their associated costs
How are you going to accomplish all of this?
By adding progressive perks and benefits in line with some of the most sought-after employers — think Facebook, Apple, and Starbucks.
Do you want to see YOUR benefits program compared to Facebook, Apple, and Starbucks?
Why Fertility Benefits?
The facts
1 in 8 -- both women and men -- experience infertility
Just 16 states
mandate IVF insurance coverage, but there are exceptions,
including small businesses or large corporations
that self-insure
of women would opt for a company
offering fertility benefits over a company that didn’t
Patient Attitudes Toward Their Employer When 100% Covered
Source: FertilityIQ, 2019
of women would prefer an employer who
provided coverage for annual fertility
testing
Why This Matters for You
Currently, of the 1 in 8 employees battling infertility, only 29 percent feel supported by their employer overall, and 38 percent feel supported by their direct supervisor. Luckily, the situation is a little improved with co-workers, by whom 44 percent feel supported.
In other words, that hopeful Mom and Dad you have at your company — the two in green above that are suffering in silence — probably feel isolated and unsupported while working for you.
The result of these individuals not feeling supported is three-fold:
1. They leave: 30 percent have quit a job in the past in part because they did not feel supported with regard to their infertility.
2. They are actively looking for — or are open to — new job opportunities: 27 percent are looking or open because of the company overall, 29 percent because of their direct supervisor, and 20 percent of co-workers.
3. They stay, even though they are unhappy: 32 percent stay to take advantage of infertility insurance benefits.
The answer to this problem is to be one of the ever-increasing number of companies to offer — or expand your — fertility benefits. Some companies — again, like Facebook, Apple, and Starbucks — are announcing them publicly, but the list pulled together by FertilityIQ grows every year.
Would you like to tell your CEO that you offer benefits comparable to Facebook?
What Are Fertility Benefits?
what's popular
Common Fertility Benefits
Source: International Foundation of Employee Benefits Plans, 2019
If your medical insurance covers all (or some) of these benefits, congratulations! You are in a small class of caring, employee-focused employers.
However, you could further enhance your family-friendly benefits by thinking outside the insurance box and being an innovator in the benefits arena.One ultra-competitive, incredibly-progressive, and fiscally-responsible option is infertility coaching.
Hello
About me
Once my husband and I developed our careers enough to feel financially solvent, we decided it was time to start building our family. Unfortunately, my journey to motherhood was long and traumatic.
In five years, I endured seven in vitro fertilization transfers (three fresh, four frozen), four miscarriages, and stillborn twins before finally giving birth to our daughter Aurora prematurely in January 2016.
Inspired by my own painful experience with infertility and pregnancy loss, I launched a twice weekly podcast called Beat Infertility in June 2015. The show features both infertility warriors and fertility experts to empower listeners to educate themselves and become their own self-advocates.
I now help people who dream of becoming parents to navigate the complicated world of fertility treatments and other paths to parenthood.
In other words, I help people — just like your employees — beat infertility.
How
POSSIBLE STRUCTURES
As someone who spent tens of thousands of dollars on fertility treatments, I know that any additional expense is not taken lightly.
However, I also know that if I had someone to guide me through the process and help me research and make evidence-based and scientifically-backed decisions along the way, my journey would have been much shorter and less traumatic — ultimately saving me money and time.
Do you know who else would have saved time and money? My employer. Here’s how:
- Faster fertility success means fewer rounds of IVF. With an average cost of $22,000 per treatment, and nearly half of parents requiring more than one treatment, this is an expensive cost to hit your insurance pool if you are one of the great employers who include fertility treatments in your insurance program. If IVF doesn't work for your employees and they decide to pursue surrogacy or adoption, you’re potentially talking about hundreds of thousands of dollars.
- Faster fertility success can reduce the chance of multiples. Because fertility treatments are so cost-prohibitive for the parents who DON’T receive insurance coverage, they often elect to transfer multiple embryos at once, significantly increasing their chance for multiples. A multiple pregnancy is always a high-risk pregnancy. There will be more doctor visits, more labs, more tests, more monitoring. In other words, MORE MONEY charged against YOUR insurance pool.
- Faster fertility success can reduce premature births. Moms carrying multiples are more likely to deliver prematurely. This leads to longer NICU stays, longer maternity leaves, more doctors visits, more labs, more tests, more monitoring. In other words, MORE MONEY charged against YOUR insurance pool.
- Faster fertility success increases employee engagement and productivity. I hate to break it to you Benefits Manager, but that infertile Mom- and Dad-to-be who feel unsupported by you are incredibly distracted and unproductive. Period. There’s just no way around it. Infertility has become their identity. They are obsessively looking at Dr. Google in secret while on company time. They are stressed to the max, and your former high-potential talent is probably underperforming now. We both know the very real costs of unproductive and disengaged employees.
It would be an honor and privilege to support your employees on your behalf!
- No cost to your company: Simply refer employees to my services and pricing page in a company-wide announcement for current employees and as part of the onboarding process for new hires. If your employees sign up with me through your referral, they will have access to exclusive programs at a reduced rate. When you think about it, this is a no-lose situation for you. There is only upside for you when for ZERO added cost, you could be the reason why your employees beat infertility.
- Shared cost between your company and employees: Your company and employees would split the cost in a way you determine. Examples: Your company pays the first month of services only, or up to a certain dollar amount (either lifetime or each month). Employees would be responsible for the difference.
- No cost to employees: Your company covers the full cost of infertility coaching for as long as the employee needs it. To put some real numbers here, you could cover 9 months of coaching for 9 employees for LESS than the cost of 1 round of IVF.
My Coaching Methodology
Help your employees become parents. Faster.
Beating infertility is possible. How? By empowering your employees to take control of their care and treatment plan. Your employees can throw endless dollars at infertility, but without making the right decisions, they are still going to fail.
I help your employees advocate for themselves and make evidence-based and scientifically-backed decisions, which lead to faster fertility success. This, as opposed to blindly trusting the decisions that are often dictated to them by the for-profit businesses — ahem, the fertility clinic and insurance companies — that financially benefit from their infertility.
Do you want to help your employees become parents faster? Then you need to arm them with:
EDUCATION
EDUCATION
Fertility treatments meant that you had to become a nurse overnight, with zero training and no education. Get answers to questions you didn’t even know needed to be asked to help make scientifically-based, well-informed decisions about your next steps.
Includes but is not limited to:
- Determining if your current clinic and/or doctor is best for your unique situation -- and suggesting alternatives if not
- Virtually/remotely attending your consults and appointments as your advocate
- Debriefing after all consults and appointments to ensure all information and options were understood
- Brainstorming questions to ask during appointments
- Suggesting additional questions to ask following appointments
- Assessing current diagnoses, such as a thyroid condition, that may need further management
- Reviewing current medications and supplements and suggesting any additions or changes to discuss with your doctor
- Researching current literature to develop a complete list of your options at every step
- Setting fertility-related goals, such as improving egg quality, and developing a plan to achieve those goals
HOPE
HOPE
Heather's coaching has taken me from being afraid not only that I couldn't achieve another pregnancy, but that if I did my body would not be able to safely carry it; to restoring my belief that both of those things are possible and will happen for me. She comes with such deep knowledge of the infertility journey, and she makes you feel understood and supported.
Wishing is the belief that your goal — building your family — will simply manifest into reality. Hope, on the other hand, is the belief that the future will be better than the present and you have the power to make it so. Together, I’ll help you build a hopeful mindset so you can seize your future, rather than have it dictated to you.
Includes but is not limited to:
- Developing a unique approach that works for you, with the goal of opening your mind — over time — to the possibility that you will become a parent
- Validating your thoughts and emotions while pointing out unhealthy or unproductive ones
- Brainstorming action plans — and backup plans in the event of obstacles along your journey
- Identifying opportunities to take action that you may have missed but might impact future outcomes
RESILIENCY
RESILIENCY
Working with Heather has facilitated breakthroughs in my cultivating a healthier mental space, as well as in brainstorming ideas to present to my doctor. Heather helped me realize that it's important to serve and participate in all of the other aspects of my life that make me who I am, which has made me feel lighter, stronger, and more able to continue in my treatment.
You cannot beat infertility if you let every bump derail you. Develop the ability to accept the challenges of your situation, process and recover from pain more effectively, eliminate resistance to prolonged suffering, and find healthy ways to adapt and move forward.
Includes but is not limited to:
- Developing ways to face and tackle the challenges of your unique diagnosis and prognosis
- Setting realistic goals and working toward them
- Shifting your mindset from problems being insurmountable
- Developing confidence in your ability to solve problems and trust your instincts
- Identifying ways to live your life outside of infertility
- Learning self-love, self-compassion, and self-forgiveness
ADVOCACY
SELF-ADVOCACY
I believe that working with Heather earlier could have cut a year or two off my journey. She backed up my intuition about what my last hurdle was, suggested a specific medication for it, and I am now 14 weeks pregnant with a healthy baby girl. While that won't be the outcome for everyone, Heather is the real deal -- none of this "just think positive" BS!
Your infertility journey will change the second you understand that YOU know your body best and YOU are your most powerful advocate. Self-advocacy is voicing what you need — not confrontation. Most infertility warriors are not natural self-advocates and thus need help developing this skill.
Includes but is not limited to:
- Helping you realize you have a voice — and how to use it politely but effectively
- Learning my five-step approach to self-advocacy
- Identifying opportunities to speak up that you may have missed but might impact future outcomes
- Brainstorming questions to ask your doctor following appointments — and in general throughout your journey
- Drafting and editing emails and other written communication with doctors
- Writing example scripts you can use for the specific situation while you're still learning to self-advocate
PARTNERSHIP
PARTNERSHIP
Her summative experience sets her apart from other infertility mentors. In working with Heather, you will have not only have a constant member of your infertility team who will provide emotional support and is in your corner through thick and thin, but who also helps you process information and empowers you to make changes that can improve outcomes.
You are not alone on this journey. But you need a fellow infertility warrior to support and guide you, pick up the pieces when your world is falling apart, and celebrate even your smallest wins.
Includes guidance and support in the following areas, based on personal experience and research:
- All paths to parenthood — trying to conceive on your own, fertility treatments, donor gametes, adoption, gestational surrogacy, and living childfree
- Interpersonal relationships
- Workplace issues
WELLNESS
HEALTH & WELLNESS
Although it can be an uncomfortable topic for some, your overall health and lifestyle matters on this journey. Optimize it to be fertility-boosting rather than fertility-hindering.
Includes guidance, accountability, and meal plans for the following lifestyles:
- Ketogenic and intermittent fasting
- Paleo
- Whole30
- Mediterranean
Additionally, includes workout and stress management plans and accountability.
