“Sailing Two Boats” the fragmented identity of working women and the hidden labor of infertility: a qualitative analysis

Objective To explore how professional women undergoing assisted reproductive technology (ART) experience and manage conflicts between treatment demands and professional identity; and to identify ways healthcare professionals can support them.Methods Following COREQ guidelines, semi-structured, in-depth interviews were conducted with 18 professional women undergoing ART in a tertiary care hospital. Reflexive Thematic Analysis bolstered by interdisciplinary investigator triangulation (clinical and basic science) ensured thematic confirmability.Results Analysis revealed Gendered Occupational Asymmetry (female occupational burden regardless of clinical aetiology), the Insider Paradox (the role reversal for healthcare professionals) and the Workplace Panopticon (constant self-surveillance to preserve professional authority). Interestingly, work simultaneously often acted as a Sanctuary of Competence, providing psychological respite. Finally, narratives exposed an Existential Rumination (mourning past personal-professional decisions) and permanent temporal career stalling. These themes were further mapped onto a ‘A Day in the Life’ structural framework to illustrate compounding daily burdens.Conclusions Current clinical lifestyle directives inadequately account for the rigid psycho-socioeconomic structures governing professional women. Based on identified themes, we propose targeted measures for healthcare professionals to deliver patient-centric care by integrating occupational awareness and identity-sensitive counselling into routine ART practice, thereby potentially reducing distress and improving treatment experience.