Nov 25, 2019
- Julie McCorkle
I didn't allow myself to be as vulnerable as I probably would today because there are a lot of great people out there that do truly care even if they don't understand or don't know what you need. I think I would have voiced that a lot sooner.
INTRO
Today, I welcome Julie McCorkle. Julie is the head of HR at PERQ, a tech firm here in town. She shares about the difficult, embodied journey of infertility, and three years of IVF treatments, and how she and Chis welcomed Declan into the world.
This episode is sponsored by Fullstack PEO, where you can get Payroll, Benefits, and Peace of Mind. We are also sponsored by Handle with Care, HR Consulting, empowering your company to respond well when it matters most.
Julie, her husband, and their one-year old son, Declan, recently moved to Indiana from the Washington, DC area. They love to hike and explore the outdoors…as well as wineries.
- Julie McCorkle
We were in Northern Virginia and going like a little farther south and a little farther east it was just beautiful. I mean, the mountains, the Blue Ridge Mountains are incredible, great wineries which we probably went to a little too often. And you know great mountain top wineries. So as a little anxious moving to Indiana just the mountains are left right.
- Julie McCorkle
Yeah right. Like as flat and cornfields. But I have been pleasantly surprised that there's a lot of beautiful area here.
Julie came to Indiana to be the head of HR at Perq. Julie has been in HR for a long time, she likes to say that she stumbled into it. A summer stint with Huntington Bank in Ohio was her first foray into the world of HR.
- Julie McCorkle
They told me I'd be working in H.R. and I literally googled what H.R. stood for. No idea my parents are small business owners I had no concept. And I just stuck with it.
- Julie McCorkle
I mean I kind of started out in the benefits field and started moving more on the H.R. management side doing a lot of employee relations and just kind of expanding my wings and just kind of found my path so in time anybody asked me about H.R. and I would just say I'm like a glorified problem solver.
Julie brings both a commitment to problem solving as well as a deep care for people to her work in HR; it is one of the reasons that she is on the Handle with Care podcast today: her own experience with loss has deepened the role that she sees HR playing within organizations.
- Julie McCorkle
One of the things when I started opening up about fertility the amount of other people that were experiencing as well. I was blown away by and I don't think until you start having the conversations that you recognize how many people have suffered like a child loss whether it's a miscarriage whether they're not able to get pregnant whatever it is. I mean every person that I would talk to had somebody in their life that has experienced something similar right or were experiencing something similar. And I think just there's, there's work that's being done, a lot of the work that you are being done in the workplace itself so many people put on masks and different personas to survive to get through the day and don't necessarily recognize the impact that it is having on them or those around them like with work and aren't willing to have the conversations or are in a spot where they can't have the conversations and if they can't have the conversation then shame on that workplace.
- Julie McCorkle
Yeah right. Then it's time to move you're probably way too valuable for them anyways. So for my fellow colleagues like H.R. professionals we are the we're in the profession where it's our responsibility to navigate that for people. There's there's really strong structures that have been built within corporations over her years. Right. That's hard for people to understand and recognize and navigate and that's what our our responsibility is. And you're good. H.R. professionals they're gonna do that for you. So if you are experiencing it if you do need support talk to them.
Julie is an HR person that you would want to talk to, because she has gone through her own story of loss. And to understand that story, let’s back up a little to her husband, Chris. Julie had finished school. Although Chris was older, he had done a stint in the army and was in his junior year. They were set up in a bar.
- Julie McCorkle
He bought me a beer. I was about it and when we started dating it just just went very quickly very very quickly. Yeah I mean we were, I think we were dating for probably about six to eight months when he accepted a job in D.C. and we had a whole year before we moved.
- Julie McCorkle
But Chris technically never asked me to move with him. He told me he accepted the job was like Oh OK great, I'm going with you. So, I didn't have a choice.
- Liesel Mertes
You declared your travel plans.
- Julie McCorkle
He said That's right. Well great. Charlie ready for the next adventure. All right good. We're going now.
- Liesel Mertes
You and Chris have added Declan to your family and I know that that is one of the things that you're here to talk about because that wasn't as straightforward as you would have liked. Tell us a little bit more about how long you and Chris had been together and when you decided that you wanted to start a family.
- Julie McCorkle
Yes. So our, I think everything in our life, Chris was far more relaxed than I am. And I definitely have I don't I mean there definite not stringent plans but I normally have my five year plan and we were both finishing up our masters and I always knew that at the point of finishing up our masters that that was at the point that I wanted to start a family. So, we had kind of had the time in line and you know we had been together.
- Julie McCorkle
So, the infertility journey was about three years. So we had been married for five had been together for about seven and half years and I think we were both very much ready.
- Julie McCorkle
And honestly, I just kind of expected it would be easy. It sounds terrible not that everything in our life has been easy. But you work so hard your whole life to not have kids and at the point when you want to have kids and start a family you just kind of expected to happen. Yeah I mean I definitely did it.
Julie and Chris start trying…a few months go by and Julie goes to the doctor. She gets some tips, and then there is testing, and then talking to a fertility specialist. By now, six months have gone by. But Julie is a problem solver, which is what led her to the door of Dr. Leilani.
- Julie McCorkle
She was she was very open and very honest in her communication just setting expectations from the beginning just from the initial just meet and greet and deciding if we wanted to go there and understanding all our options and what the process for testing and you know kind of, just all the cost and everything that goes into it and the time commitment and you hear everything you're like OK.
- Julie McCorkle
Yeah we can do this. I mean this is gonna be a significant commitment but we can do this. This is fine. And then as you go through the process you're like Do we really want to keep doing this? Do we really want to keep doing this? There's a lot more than you really expect. Right. It's hard to actually process all that until I think you're in the middle of it.
- Liesel Mertes
When I hear that is that perhaps there's initial decision to go down this path. But then there's lots of other decision points along the way. Do we want to continue doing want to keep doing that? Does that feel accurate to you?
- Julie McCorkle
Yeah absolutely.
- Julie McCorkle
And I think I don't know how similar other couples have experienced it but you know based on other conversations I've had it's probably pretty much the same. It's very incremental. So really, just understanding what the problem is in the first place and whether there's anything that can be done with it is of course the first step. So there's this whole slew of testing that needs to be done. And then there's there's like increments of certain treatments that can be done to see if they work and then it's kind of like just to wait and see.
- Julie McCorkle
So we had decided to do like two eyes right before going down the full IVF path and neither one of those work and that's a five thousand dollar investment and that's about a six month time frame like, Well that was like a total waste of time. Right. Total waste of time, total waste of money but otherwise that's significantly less expensive and less invasive than IVF. So, if we have done that I'm not sure we would have gotten to the same point. Right so there's a lot of back and forth like did I just waste six months of our time?
MUSICAL TRANSITION
- Julie McCorkle
The IVF investment for us was thirty thousand dollars. Yeah. And there are ways like and I had a very honest discussion about it like this is gonna be a significant investment. This is what we have to do in our family and our household to make it happen. Are we willing to do that. And the question for both of us is yes absolutely right. There's no reason why we want to do it.
- Julie McCorkle
We can make it happen. So we're going to. And I think there's a lot of coupling that couples that don't have that and I was also very fortunate to have a lot of support and just the time right to be able to go until late late to work every single day. So I have to stop for lab tests every single morning for a blood draw a lot of the way to start with the emotional social.
- Julie McCorkle
You get to know the nurses really well so least you've got great relationships. The traffic wasn't bad. No I was in a great, great fertility clinic. The traffic was terrible. Nice to see you this. It's always it's always vogue but there's a lot of people that do not have the ability to change their life for what they're going through.
- Liesel Mertes
Yeah well yeah I hear I hear in that. I mean that is an interesting consideration in the landscape of it not it not that it's like a privilege to walk through something that hard but it's not an option for you know some people that are like it's a hardship but it's not even an available hardship for some people who are like No. Like we don't have the financial resources to give to that right.
- Liesel Mertes
I'm struck that a journey with infertility is a very physical journey for a woman and lots of like logistics and scheduling. Would you tell us a little bit more about for someone who's not walked through that journey and give us like more of a sense of the physicality? Yeah what it is to go through fertility treatment?
- Julie McCorkle
Yeah you're actually right. So I think the physical ness was atrocious really atrocious. There's there's a significant amount of time commitment with scheduling; I mean I was in the fertility clinic every other morning just for bloodwork so just constantly making sure that you're eating the right thing staying away from alcohol which, I love my wine, constantly hydrated right just in order to get a good blood draw is something that it's it's always on your mind it's and it always has to be I think just in order to go through it. So the time commitment of itself is an impact on work, it's an impact on your personal life because it just takes over.
- Julie McCorkle
But the physical ness that you go through just from the medicines and just the side effects from, you know at one point when before they do the retrieval like an egg retrieval you're on a significant amount of fertility meds and my doctor described to me of like having a bushel of grapes sitting outside of your ovaries. So you just feel huge and gross and you can't move and you can't button your pants almost like being pregnant but you don't get the the great resource for it.
- Julie McCorkle
So in general I mean when I responded my body like I was about 30 pounds heavier. I was exhausted like absolute exhausted all the time and I just felt. GROSS definitely didn't feel like myself and when I actually got pregnant the first time in three years that I felt healthy again I felt normal felt more like myself and I loved being pregnant because of that there's a lot of people I think absolutely have terrible pregnancies. But for me my body had already processed a lot of the and just the changes in the hormones. So it's the breeze was great.
- Liesel Mertes
It's a long time to be feeling not outside of your body but ill at ease. Yeah your body just and all of that emotional stress.
Oh yes with that.
- Liesel Mertes
Tell us a little bit more about the emotions that accompany that physical journey. What would someone who has not gone through that what would they not understand that would be important for them to know?
- Julie McCorkle
So I think the journey and of itself like everything that you go through with the testing and just working through the process of fertility whatever treatments you decide that in and of itself is all consuming right: the time, the physical, the money, the financial commitment. Mentally, it was all consuming for me. So there was probably not a moment of any day that I didn't think about it. It was consuming of my dreams every single night when I would sleep I would have some sort of dream about our fertility journey and it's all I thought about.
- Julie McCorkle
It's all I thought about and it's you know for me. I mentioned how stubborn I am of like you know I'm not really somebody where you tell me I can't do something and then think that I actually can't do it. So, just starting to recognize the possibility that I'd never be able to have kids was very that was the most emotional part because I never had kids so I didn't necessarily knew what I was missing out on. Now I have Declan, I cannot ever imagine life without him. Right. But we were at that phase yet so
- Julie McCorkle
I think it's just the possibility of not having that and not living up to what I thought my life would be. It was hard to process.
MUSICAL TRANSITION
- Liesel Mertes
What were ways that people in your wider community really supported you?
- Julie McCorkle
Well yeah. So, I think my work team was actually by far the most supportive that I ever experienced. I mean they were incredible. I remember going to my boss really at the point that we started doing some of the testing because I was out significantly and I didn't want him to think that I was leaving right. I didn't want him to think I was randomly scheduling all these appointments and that I was interviewing. So I sat down his office and like, I just want you to be aware I don't know what the time commitment is but we're having some fertility issues.
- Julie McCorkle
And I just lost it. I just started sobbing and he got up and gave me a big hug and he's like, I don't, whatever you need, whatever you need. Don't stress about it and that. And I was very close with my former supervisor always he's a dear friend of mine. So I knew, when he said, like whatever you need, he actually meant it.
- Julie McCorkle
And I leaned on him a lot. I mean throughout. It was about a three year journey. So throughout that time frame just mentally and physically not being at work. I mean there's a lot that he took on to do that but it wasn't just my boss.
- Julie McCorkle
but the larger team that I worked with. I had two employees that reported directly to me at the time that I wasn't necessarily there couldn't be there were frankly if I didn't have the mental capacity to deal with something they did. So that team in of itself was incredibly supportive and it's just a question.
- Liesel Mertes
When you say that. So those moments in real time because this and they hear like not having the mental capacity to deal with the problem. Yeah. Did you have the self-awareness act like those moments to be able to say, I'm like I'm kind of overwhelmed right now? I need you to take this. Did they sense that? How did that communication go?
- Julie McCorkle
No I definitely didn't. OK. And that's one of things that I, after the fact, like after Declan was here and I kind of look back and reflect on that time frame. I like to think that I handled it pretty well. But I'm sure I didn't handle it nearly to the point like to the extent that I thought I did. And I knew that I was stressed and overwhelmed. But I'm one of those individuals where I just take it day by day. Right.
- Julie McCorkle
So if there's too many things on my plate I'm I don't like to pass off work. I don't like to say that I can't handle this. I just take it day by day. So I didn't recognize it until after the fact and until really until Declan was successful like successfully conceived. I guess I didn't realize how much the stress was impacting the fertility and kind of our issues and the last implantation they did. That was when my boss Ken mentioned to me, he's like, you need to get out of here like I do. And I told him I was like Yep I agree. Let's get out of DC.
- Julie McCorkle
I'm just gonna work from home. He's like, No I mean there's certain things I know you're going to do because you're stubborn you're still gonna do it but I don't want you to focus on a thing. So the team recognized it more what I needed than what I did right. And they were very good at kind of calling into attention of like I'm just gonna take this off your plate just gonna take it and handle it and I'll let you know how it goes. And you were able to release that to the eggs. I trust them immensely.
- Liesel Mertes
That's what I hear in that the importance of an underlying trust that's established in those moments where you can actually believe like oh they're not seeing me as incompetent. They're trying to care for me. I mean, there's a lot of underlying elements of culture that have to be in place for that to be possible. Yeah. Yeah for them to say let me take it. And for you to say OK. Absolutely do that.
- Julie McCorkle
Absolutely. And there was. You know, before I even started on the lab journey I had a great working relationship with my boss. I had a great working relationships with my team anyways, and we've always had really open honest communication. So it's a no brainer for me to just talk through it right and just talk about it and they knew my own little personal working style my own quirks and needs. So when they saw me get stressed or saw that I was running around a little frantic and probably not operating at my full capacity, that's when they stepped in and just did it.
- Liesel Mertes
Did they have any other particular awareness is or considerations for you within the years of that journey? I know that we had talked about things like baby showers in the office place. How did you feel like that transpired in your workplace and how you felt in the midst of those dynamics or how other people were caring for you?
- Julie McCorkle
Yes, I think the individual team around me was incredibly cognizant of those needs and you know, when I was going through the fertility journey you see others that get pregnant and you're really excited for them but frankly you're mad at them at the same time right. And there's there are individuals and then I was surrounded with both my personal and professional life that we'll get pregnant immediately and I became very sensitive over listening trying I don't even know if I want this child I'm like I just want to smack you excuse my violence I you know and my team understanding what I was going through was very cognizant of those conversations and would just just kind of pull me away or you know immediately change the subject whatever it may be. Just recognizing it before I would even recognize it.
- Julie McCorkle
And there are a lot you know there's a lot that happens in the workplace. I've mentioned to the colleague of mine she's struggled with infertility for 10 years and I'm not sure if her and her husband will be able to have children they still struggle with it. And she was at a place where she had just tried every avenue possible. There's really nothing else for them to try. Possibly except you know surrogacy and that was kind of the next steps. But there is a baby shower in the workplace and she had just suffered from a miscarriage.
- Julie McCorkle
I don't think anybody recognized why she was out but she was out on the day there was a baby shower. There's all sorts of baby things in her office they're just using her office to kind of organize and store things before the mom could put him in a car and she just shut down right.
- Julie McCorkle
So I knew her journey not many people did but I knew of her journey and I grabbed her that day when she she called me up and was extremely emotional in telling about it, like OK you need to go home. I'll tell your boss why you're home just just leave right, like this is what you need in this moment. And I think it's really important to have individuals in your life, regardless of what circumstances either personal or professional, that know and understand and can, you can recognize that that maybe pushes you for something that you need that otherwise you may not do yourself to be able to acknowledge that and give voice to it and give yourself permission to take that space.
- Liesel Mertes
What were some of the worst ways that your community like intersected with you or the things that you look back on and you think that was just so dumb or that was so painful?
- Julie McCorkle
Yeah. I think the worst honestly was my mom. It sounds terrible; I've got an interesting relationship with my mom anyway and I certainly recognize the things that she's not great at and I know why she is the person that she is and I recognize and I respect that. But, it's very different than me. And we process things in a very different manner. My mom's deeply religious. So everything to her goes back to the Catholic Church the Catholic religion and her beliefs and I'm honestly not so there's comments that she made to me all the time that just really dug into me and a lot of times I just kind of chalked up to, Well that's Mom being Mom right. I had a couple of times like for example she made a comment when I was going through the first surgery was home for a little going away party for my sister and she made the comment about essentially making sure that I'm going to church or leaks at the time they do become they're pregnant. The devil was gonna steal the soul of my baby and I just looked around and I just walked away right. And I mentioned it to my husband who completely blew up and he and I'm sure mom heard him blow up because we were having conversations like I can't understand why she'd make a commentary like that knowing everything you're going through right now and when he said that Mike you're asleep right.
- Julie McCorkle
You're absolutely right. Why would she make a comment like that? Why would she not be supportive? And just, the individual that's in my life the most that should recognize what I need right now.
- Julie McCorkle
I don't need you to say anything sometimes I just need you to listen. She wasn't able to do that but she's not who she is. So, there are points and there's a lot of my siblings I'm very close with. There are points that I think they have the same moments like giving advice and you just need to pray more you need to go to church.
- Julie McCorkle
Yes sir I don't think so. You. Where that was that shut me down. And you know after mom made that comment I didn't talk to her for six months and it got to the point when I actually got pregnant I'm like, well you know I actually want a relationship with my mom because I want my son to have a relationship with his grandparents right where I just kind of got over it. But I have now going through that journey recognize the people in my life that I know that I can't live on.
- Julie McCorkle
There are people in my life that regardless of what I go through I will be able to lean on and they will always be there and recognize what I need. And there are others that just won't. And that's OK.
- Liesel Mertes
It's interesting as we age how we how we feel like on a deep level those things that you just feel like you know like if you're not safe or these are people I can depend on as you think about those people and you say yeah you're someone that I can depend on. Are there are there characteristics that are common across them where you say yeah they're marked by this?
- Julie McCorkle
Yeah, I think just the capacity to listen and not just listening to let somebody talk but listening to actually understand what they're saying. And this is so much of what I do in my work in H.R. where people will come to you and they'll bring some sort of issue to mind. And normally, what they're saying is not what they need it's not what the issue is you have to understand the underlying there's definitely people I found in my life that can look below the surface to really truly understand and just just care. And those individuals are the ones that I think you can lean upon.
- Liesel Mertes
I love that that carryover from what your personal journey has been into your professional life because, a lot of times you know that such a divide there's work and then there's your life. I think that's binary in a way that is false. Yeah, but expound on that a little bit more because of what you have experienced. What do you bring differently to your role in H.R.? You say you have the Julie in 2019 has grown beyond the Julie of 2010 in these ways whether that's dealing with infertility specifically or just with anyone who might walk in your door having gone through a disruptive life event.
- Julie McCorkle
Yeah absolutely. So I think I think they're great. H.R. professionals out there some that can really understand the balance between supporting and advocating for employees and still looking out for the best interests of the company and there's others that kind of skew one way right through there too far in the company where most the time they don't have the trust of their staff or on the other side like two supportive of staff where they can't actually support the interests of the company. That balance I think I've always done pretty well navigating it and maintaining a healthy balance.
- Julie McCorkle
But I don't think I without going through this journey. I don't think I truly had an understanding of the impact a disruptive life event can have on somebody. I mean I've always think I've been able to listen to them to understand to get to the root of the issue and do my best to help them and especially just navigating management structure right to help them whether it's additional time off or just telling their supervisor they need to be out because their supervisor is not going to react well and they don't need that reaction.
- Julie McCorkle
But truly understanding what that does to somebody going through this journey I've never had that understanding and it's hard to I'm not sure if I ever would if I haven't experienced it myself because it's really hard to understand what somebody is experiencing.
- Julie McCorkle
You can listen to them you can have empathy you can care but you have to you have to almost put it in your own context in your own experiences to be able to feel it right here that
- Liesel Mertes
Do you have any words of insight to someone who is listening and right now they're in the midst of their infertility journey? Or another way of raising it. Any words that you would give to a younger version of yourself. From what you know now?
- Julie McCorkle
A younger version of myself, I think I definitely would have opened up quicker than what I did. I mean, I think I had great conversations great support from the individuals around me
- Julie McCorkle
I didn't allow myself to be as vulnerable as I probably would today because there are a lot of great people out there that do truly care even if they don't understand or don't know what you need. I think I would have voiced that a lot sooner. Yeah and I think I would have allowed myself to recognize I need to be away from this.
- Julie McCorkle
I need to be away from work. I need to be away from D.C.. I just need to be in an area that is stress free where I just keep my mind off of the journey itself. What I'm going through and allow myself to voice that I definitely never allowed myself to voice that. And in hindsight I wish I would have. I'm just very fortunate I had people in my life that voiced it for me. And I think recognizing if you do or if you don't have those people allowing yourself to to utilize the help that somebody is willing to lend.
- Liesel Mertes
Mm hmm. And for anyone who's listening that says Oh yeah I have someone in my life who is in the middle of this when I have an employee who, this is part of their story, where do you give to someone who finds themselves in those support roles?
- Julie McCorkle
I would say to reach out to if you have somebody in your life and you've already developed that relationship where you can start the conversation just starting the conversation of itself is a great place to start. And just reach out to ask them what they need. Just let them talk. And then once they talk truly listen to what they're not necessarily saying. And those are the ways in which you can find to make a difference for that person.
MUSICAL TRANSITION
I want to close with a thanks to our podcast sponsor, FullStack PEO. The good people at FullStack focus on your people so you can scale your business faster.
And we end, as always, with three take-aways…
- Julie spoke about how important it was to have individuals in her life that pushed her to “take her space”, to acknowledge the pain and stress of this season. Like the boss that encouraged her to take time away from DC. Julie became that person when she encouraged her coworker to go home after the baby shower debacle. When people are going through stress, they are oftentimes consumed with the needs of the moment. Perhaps you can be that friend or manager that encourages a friend dealing with infertility to take some necessary space and time; it can mean a lot.
- Julie was able to be open about her treatments and receive the help and advice of her managers and coworkers because there was a robust culture of trust and respect that was already present in her workplace. Is this the sort of truly supportive workplace that you are a part of? If not, what are some proactive steps that you can take to build trust BEFORE hard times come?
- IVF and infertility treatments can be tremendously taxing on both a physical and emotional level. As you can, give flexibility and understanding to the women in your organization going through IVF. They are managing tremendous stress in their bodies as well as their schedules in addition to doing their daily work for the organization.
OUTRO