Infertility: Worst Club, Best Members
I never really thought about infertility.
In fact, I spent most of my adult life actively trying not to get pregnant. So when I had my first child easily and without a single complication - exactly as we planned, right within our anticipated timeline - I assumed that’s just how my body worked and would always work. I was young. Healthy. Unstoppable!
I was completely stunned when, the second time around, nothing happened. Month after month, negative test after negative test. My husband and I celebrated our son’s first birthday, then his second. We underwent testing, only to come out the other side branded with the diagnosis of “unexplained secondary infertility”. Our son’s third birthday loomed.
During this whole time, my heart flip-flopped endlessly between deep & consuming love for my son, and an insistent voice telling me that our family just wasn’t complete. I felt guilt that he wasn’t “enough” for us, but still…that voice just would. not. stop.
For now, let me skip to the ending: after several rounds of fertility treatments, we held beautiful baby Marie in our arms just a few months before our son’s fourth birthday. She’s a chubby, smiley, perfect little miracle that we never take for granted. THANK GOD FOR MODERN SCIENCE. And our family finally feels complete.
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Secondary infertility is its own kind of heartbreak — because my body did this once. It succeeded. So why can’t it do it again? I was (and am) deeply grateful for the child I already had, and that gratitude is real — but so is the grief, the isolation, the frustration, the perpetual ache of feeling like my own body was failing me in a way I never expected for reasons that no one could explain.
What do I wish I knew? I wish I’d been more in tune with my own body and my own fertility before it came down to the wire. I wish I’d known more about my options, and that there were resources for people going through this. I wish I’d gone into the experience with eyes wider open and been kinder to myself.
But above all, what I’ve learned is this: infertility is so much more common than we think. I have a best friend who went through it. A close coworker. A neighbor. And the only way I was able to forge these connections of shared experience was by opening up myself. Even when it was hard, even when I felt ashamed, even when it felt scary to reveal such a personal part of myself. I had to balance what was healthiest for my family - a sense of privacy, a desire not to get anyone’s hopes up until we’d made it through the other side - with what was healthiest for my own mental health.
I still remember specific moments that carried me through some of the hardest, saddest moments of my life. A nurse friend who gave me my injections until I learned how to do them myself (once sticking me in her work parking lot while very late to a dinner party.) A best friend who gave me a care package made up of all the good luck charms she wore at her own (successful) embryo transfer. A coworker who quite literally let me cry on her shoulder when my grief and frustration boiled over without warning during a casual coffee chat. A mom & mother-in-law who supported our journey unconditionally without ever knowing a single detail of what we were going through.
So I wish I’d opened up more. Both for myself, and for those I might have emboldened simply by being open about my own experience. Because those of us experiencing infertility, we often walk around thinking we’re the only ones. And that’s not only untrue, it’s truly sad. It robs others of the opportunity to care for us in whatever way they can, and say to us: You are not alone.
To those experiencing infertility, I see you. I was you. I hold you in my heart.
A few resources that I hope can help anyone going through infertility:
An amazing podcast busting myths about fertility, featuring The Egg Whisperer, Dr. Aimee Eyvazzadeh
A fantastic guide by the NYTimes that outlines what the infertility diagnosis means and how it might be approached by your medical team
