“If I were looking at someone like me two or three years ago, I’d be saying the same thing, ‘Get over it! You have a baby already!’ But somehow, not being able to have a second child brings up all the old hurt all over again. It’s another reminder that I’m failing–that I can’t create the family I want.”

For my client Becky, it took a whole lot of high-tech effort to get pregnant the first time around. But once she was able to successfully birth a child, she assumed that she’d have less difficulty the second time around. Unfortunately, this has not turned out to be the case, and the emotional turmoil she’s experiencing now only seems to be amplified by what she went through in the past.

For other women, pregnancy occurs easily the first time, and again, the assumption is made that other pregnancies should follow easily.

But unfortunately, for those 3 million people in America who struggle with Secondary Infertility, that’s simply not true. Secondary Infertility is defined as “the inability to conceive a baby or carry a pregnancy to term afer the birth of one or more children..and it’s actually more common than primary infertility.” (www.conceivemagazine.com, Spring 2008).

My experience with women and couples who experience secondary infertility is that support is harder to come by. Many people who are dealing with primary infertility would do anything just to have one child, and as a result they find it more difficult to relate to the struggle someone who already has a child is having. Some clients have told me that when they have tried to get support by attending local infertility support groups, for example, there’s a sense of not fitting in–that others there can’t quite understand the depth of their struggle.

I Am More Than My Infertility

In thinking about this, I’ve come to understand that whether it’s primary or secondary infertility, the grief about not being able to have the life, the family, you envisioned is still the same. As Becky so eloquently put it, “When I look at my daughter, and imagine that she may be alone and not have any of the joy and connection that siblings can bring, my heart just breaks for her..”

Maybe it’s a case of having to walk in the other person’s shoes in order to really understand what the experience is like.

Marina