“Secondary
Infertility”, is what my
doctor said. To me that was just a contradiction. Infertility was
something that was revealed the very first time you were trying to get
pregnant. I had a healthy toddler that I had no trouble conceiving or carrying
to term. Turns out, like so many women, I had been believing one of the many
myths of fertility: Once you’ve had a baby, you will have NO
trouble having another. And as much as it felt like it—I was by no
means alone. Who knew that nearly 3 million women in the US suffer from
secondary infertility every year.
The
journey to my diagnosis was probably not unlike many other women—I had a plan-
about 3 years between the kids would be a perfect spread—enough time to enjoy
my first baby and a good gap for them to still be close. But you know what
they say – you make plans and God laughs. And as unfathomable as that was to
believe, my fertility journey did feel like a cruel joke. Three miscarriages in
2 years—one on my actual birthday, a difficult D&C, endless testing and
probing…..never mind the guilt I was feeling, trying so hard to have
another baby and taking so much precious time away from the baby that was
here. But still I was counting myself lucky. My RE honed right in
on my problem-I had a blood clotting issue which meant I could conceive I
just could not hold a pregnancy. Enter LOVENOX! The dream blood thinner.
After my IUI resulted in a viable pregnancy my daily shots began and continued
every day for 10 months. And even though I felt like a pin cushion,
it was a miniscule price to pay to welcome another baby into our lives. I
should pause here and reflect on OUR—after all, my husband was going through
all of this too. And like so many of our amazing husbands and partners, who sit
quietly in waiting rooms, holding our hands during ultrasounds,
making us tea after morning injections – he was
a constant source of strength and honestly the financial rock but his
heart was breaking too.
So, after
2+ years of tremendous sadness and loss, our second son was born. We felt
so blessed and lucky that our moment of struggle had passed but it was never
lost on me that I was FOREVER a part of this amazing membership of women, these
fertility warriors. Women I had learned so much from and from whom I
gained so much strength. And many years after my own journey I was
able to pay that forward when I got an opportunity to work in the fertility
field. To know that I could somehow make a difference to couples still
struggling with infertility felt so humbling. To be able to just let one woman
know that I knew what it felt like when someone said “wow, there are 4-1/2
years between your kids, did you really want that much of a gap?”
Sadly,
there is still too much shame, embarrassment and judgement in infertility. I
think I never shared my own story much because of that, but then I read a great
quote…. “if we don’t own our stories, they own us.” So to all those past
present and future fertility survivors out there--keep the sharing coming and hopefully we can reverse the stigma of
infertility one story at a time.
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