“Mommy, when am I going to be a big sister?” our four-year-old daughter asked out of the blue one random Saturday morning.
She didn’t know about the two failed embryo transfers earlier in the year. Or the litany of procedures I’d undergone to get my uterus into tip-top shape. Or the upcoming back-to-back egg retrievals we had scheduled due to my “advanced maternal age” and diminishing ovarian reserve.
“Well, we’re working on it,” I said in an effort to reassure her (and myself).
“Is it going to be a boy or a girl?” she asked.
“We don’t know yet,” I told her. “It’s going to be a surprise.”
“I think a girl,” she said confidently, before moving on to the far more pressing matter of convincing her dad to make French toast for breakfast.
A quintessential Libra, our daughter is very observant. She’s well aware of the fact that she’s one of the few kids in her class without a sibling. She notices the rounded bellies that float in and out of her school at drop-off and pick-up. I see them, too.
One morning, after one of the class moms mentioned she was due with another girl—their third—in the spring, I couldn’t help but cry in my car in the daycare parking lot. First came a wave of envy. Then grief. Then gratitude. All of this before my morning coffee.
When it isn’t easier the second time around
Our daughter was born via IVF in 2021 after multiple failed cycles. We knew we would likely need IVF to conceive a second child, but I naively thought it would be easier this time around. After all, my doctor had figured out a protocol that worked and my body had already successfully carried a baby to term once. Surely, it could do it again. But I was mistaken. We quickly found ourselves among the 11% of American couples that experience secondary infertility.
Secondary infertility refers to infertility after a prior live birth, explains Amanda Adeleye, MD, founder and medical director of CCRM in Chicago. “Acquired conditions like the development of uterine fibroids or polyps, hormonal conditions can make it more challenging to conceive as we age,” she says.
For people under 35 who’ve been trying for a year to conceive another child with no luck, Dr. Adeleye recommends seeing a reproductive endocrinologist and infertility specialist. If you’re between 35 and 39 years old, that time window shrinks to six months. Women who are 40 or older, or have a condition that might impact infertility, should consult an expert “right away.”
The trauma of trying again—and failing
With so much emphasis on timelines, tests, and treatment plans, it’s easy for the emotional toll of secondary infertility to take a backseat. But for me, the medical aspects didn’t impact me nearly as much as the loneliness. I didn’t know where I could safely share my experience with fear of judgment. In the infertility groups I’d found solace in many years ago, I felt guilty because I already had a child. In my mom group, everyone already had their families of four. I felt like an outlier—suspended between two worlds, belonging fully to neither.
