I had never even heard of secondary infertility until I was in the middle of it. Defined as the inability to become pregnant, or to carry a pregnancy to term following the birth of one or more biological children, secondary infertility brings its own particular brand of grief to a couple trying to conceive.
We had a wonderful 2-year-old daughter when we started trying for a second child. I didn’t get pregnant right away the first time, so we expected some waiting, but month after month went by and my disappointment grew more intense. Six months. Nine months. A year went by.
I kept telling myself that it would happen. We didn’t need any intervention the first time, so we were reluctant to try fertility drugs or anything extreme. I did try timing my ovulation by temperature and cervical mucous tests, but to no avail.
I became increasingly fragile emotionally, living on a never-ending roller coaster of hope and despair ruled by the two-week increments before and after ovulation. I cried a lot, but still tried to keep it together while taking care of our toddler and having some semblance of a normal home life.
This wasn’t easy on me or my husband. We felt like we were in limbo for a couple of years—not knowing if I would be getting pregnant any day now or never.
I felt cheated, isolated and a failure. Nobody else I knew was having this problem. Other moms from my playgroup were having babies, and some even lapped me, getting pregnant a third time while we were still trying for no. 2. The kicker was that most of them were older than me. I dropped out of that playgroup. I just couldn’t stand to be around them anymore.
We eventually consulted a fertility specialist, who found no smoking gun. And he showed us a depressing chart showing fertility rates plummeting after 35 and the success rates for increasingly invasive treatments.
We went home and sat on the couch. My husband is an only child, and although he wanted a second just as much as I did, he knew it was not the end of the world to be an only. He knew how hard it had been on me, and we both knew there was no guarantee of success. He said he would let me decide if we were going to go ahead with any treatment.
I thought about a friend of mine who had undergone treatment for primary infertility. Although it was eventually successful, what I remembered most was her telling me, “There are so many levels at which you can fail.” After two years of disappointment, I just didn’t think I could take any more. I told my husband, “I don’t want to do it.”
We stayed off birth control, but stopped “trying” to conceive. The grief and pain were still there, but lessened with time. I learned to let go of the ideal I had in my head and appreciate the freedom our family experienced as our toddler grew into an independent girl. We now have one wonderful 10-year-old and feel very blessed.
Lena Carlson is a mom in North County San Diego.
