secondary infertility – The Great Pudding Club Hunt

It’s still raw. We are still infertile. Infertility hasn’t suddenly left us. It has left a horrible wound and it hasn’t healed. We have not resolved our infertility. We struggled to conceive Aviana for 2.5 yrs and now she is 2.5 yrs old. We loved, cried, hurt, struggled, laughed, loved some more and lost. We may not be on the ‘infertility roller coaster’ right now as we wait. We don’t really know what we are waiting for, but infertility has STOLEN the freedom from us to build our family in the way we want to.

It’s ugly. We know what that roller coaster is like. We are not naïve newbies to this gig, it’s not any ordinary theme park roller coaster. It’s the roller coaster of your nightmares. It’s fast, it’s slow, it turns you upside down, it spins you around until you scream to let you off, it drowns you, it makes you sick to your stomach, it takes you high, it takes you low and deep underground, it transports you to another world, you are trapped and don’t know if you will ever get off. But we made it off that ride. So why would we want to get back on it knowing what we know today?

It affects our decision making in all things family building. I mean, most couples face the challenging question “Should we grow our family?” fertile or not. But add on the ugly that is infertility and it seriously warps your perspective in answering that question.

For this National Infertility Awareness Week, I want you to know that it still hurts and it will keep hurting, so please don’t forget us. For me it hurts in a different way than before. It can be so easy to forget my infertility….then suddenly BAM, a pregnant woman complains about her pregnancy, or BAM you find yourself staring at cute tiny baby outfits wondering if you will ever get the chance to fill your basket, or BAM someone asks you when you will give your daughter a sibling. BAM, it just comes out of nowhere. And that’s one of the differences of infertility second time around. Sometimes, it just doesn’t phase me, but other times it really does and it surprises me every. single. time.

This is #InfertilityUncovered. This is a side to infertility that can easily forgotten. So if you are out there, with a child already but your family incomplete because of infertility, you are not alone and your feelings matter.

For more information about Resolve’s National Infertility Awareness Week see: www.infertilityawareness.org

Primary infertility is fearing what you’ll never get to experience.

Secondary infertility is knowing what you’re missing.

These aren’t my words…these are from a fellow blogger who published a post on scary mommy recently (When you are dealing with infertility the second time around). And these are perfect words to sum up where I am and where this blog is.

I remember saying to someone who was about to go into surrogacy for a second time around…”At least you have your daughter to remind you when you are in the trenches of how success can happen”. I kind of cringe a little now looking back on that because I said that when I had ZERO children. I understand differently now, that there is no “At Least…” Every single infertility journey is different and comes with their own individual aches and pains that make it so hard for there ever to be an “At least…”. There just isn’t.

If someone told me now “At least you have Aviana…” I’d probably politely agree and say “yes, I am lucky”. Because I AM LUCKY. I know that of course. But the “at least” part negates or nullifies all the pain of infertility. A slight of words, an unknowing stab in the heart.

Here’s the thing. IF I was fertile, I would be happy to wait much longer to try for a second baby. I would of course be three years younger, so age wouldn’t be of a concern to me. I would wait because I would want my body to recover from child birth and breastfeeding. And to ensure that I don’t have two under two – because I don’t have the patience of a saint, quite frankly (Much kudos to you parents that do!). I would wait so I can catch up a bit on my career…because maternity leave DOES impact it. I would do more research on IUGR and see how we could prevent it or manage it better. These are MY personal feelings, Chris has other feelings too about it all, some are similar, some differ, but they are not for me to share with the world.

The option to build my family when I want to is not an easy one. I know that time is ticking. My eggs are declining in quality and my body races towards the menopause.

You see, with infertility the first time, it was a genuine fear that I would never become a mother. It was a completely valid feeling. What’s different now, is that second time around I do know what I am missing. I know what it is like to carry a baby and to fall in love with it. Despite all the pain and challenges, I would do it all again. I’d face those mountains. I’d be better prepared and I’ll never have that fear that I won’t become a mother because I already am. So if you see me in the infertility trenches some time in the future, remind me that. May be it will help. May be it won’t. But until I am there I cannot possibly know, because every infertility journey is different.