Secondary Infertility

This morning my friend Wendi posted Infertility Again on her blog. Although infertility is not a topic that I have really talked about on my blog, her post inspired me to attempt to explain how secondary infertility impacts our family.

Most of you know our story, but I will do a very brief recap just in case. I gave birth to a beautiful baby girl in June 2005 by emergency C-section. Immediately following her birth I was taken back into surgery because I was hemorrhaging (bleeding out). The doctors could not stop the bleeding, so they had no choice but to preform a hysterectomy. Therefore leaving me without a uterus.

In 2007 we were blessed by the miracle of adoption when our second beautiful daughter entered our family at 6 months old. Although we feel so blessed to have two girls it is still difficult to know that expanding our family is not as easy as getting pregnant. If we want to have more children it will take a lot of planning, paperwork and money.

Wendi's friend Joanna explained perfectly the feelings that we have dealt with over the years. Here are some of them: (I changed the wording a little to relate it to our situation.)

"One thing that makes secondary infertility so painful and more lonely is that just by the nature of what you do on a daily basis, you are forced to be around pregnant people. And usually these are people who are pregnant for the second or third time. Take the zoo, for instance. When dealing with primary infertility, one would never in a million years have gone to the zoo on a regular basis. You would have avoided it like the plague. The same goes for playgrounds, Story Time at the library, and any other activity that screams YOUNG FAMILIES!! But now, because I have young children, I go to these places. Places where there are other moms of young children. And chances are, if they've had one child they'll have another with no difficulty. Inevitably you see moms with a huge baby belly who have children the same age as your own (or younger even), and you can't help but be reminded that you can't have children." This is one of the reasons that it has been so difficult for me to get involved in groups like MOPS. I also have a difficult time going to Baby Showers and hearing that people are pregnant. I truly am happy for their family, but it is a reminder of what we have lost.

"I feel like I don't fit in anywhere --and that no one understands. Women who are still dealing with primary infertility can't imagine that secondary could feel the same way. At least you already have a child," they say." I feel guilty about being sad about my own infertility when God has already given us two beautiful girls.

"The bewildering thing is that they're right and there is no reasonable explanation to how the ache can be so strong. People who see you with one child assume you could have two, and so they ask when you're going to have another. And the most heartbreaking of all is when the children realizes that most people have siblings and voices to you that they'd like more too. As if it's that easy." I get asked multiple times a week when we are going to have a boy since we already have two beautiful girls. I always wanted a boy and it is hard to think that they may never happen.

We are so thankful for our girls and yet still feel the loss of not being able to physically have more children. We are in prayer for what God has in store for our family.