LTTTC and Secondary Infertility - What are your experiences?

[terry]

I'm so glad I found this thread today. After 13 cycles of fresh & frozen IVF cycles I got my little miracle daughter and I love her to bits. I always said that I would be happy to have just one and I am but when I see her interacting with other children and running to play with them it breaks my heart that she doesn't have a sybling. When she was conceived we had no eggs left so have not gone back for another cycle although we have tried naturally without success (I have unexplained infertility). I just don't know how to stop that feeling of longing for another DD or DS even though mentally I know I'm getting older and should stop trying. I also feel I'm being selfish because I got what I wanted and want more while others are still struggling for just one.

[juniper76]

Terry, that's a heck of a long journey to parenthood for. I'm so glad you have your precious little girl. I sometimes have similar feelings of "am I being selfish", but for a slightly different reason - knowing now (from test results after DD was born) that our odds of success were so low, it feels like DD was truly a miracle for us and I often wonder if it's selfish to be wanting/asking for another miracle when there are so many praying/hoping for their own miracles (not just TTC, but also those fighting illness or living in horrific circumstances)...

Hugs to everyone! I hope we can all find the balance between treasuring what we have and striving for what we want. xx

[Sarah4kurt13]

I am the same feeling guilty for having a child already and why can't I just be happy with what I've got when everyone keeps telling me I should be and just get on with life! We've got a nice house and 2 kids (but not together!) And I must say I want to slap them these days! Of course I'm happy with what I've got I. Life! It does not take away the longing for our own child that we have tried so hard for and lost so many times now.

And I feel even more bad like I'm a terrible step parent to his child as although I'm allways kind to him and a parent to him as much as I can be, I feel so very jealous of the fact my DF got to have a child with someone else and why not me! Sometimes it eats me up watching him play with him :-/ I have to look away or I'll cry.
And when I misscarry I can't stand to look at him and I feel so terrible! It's not his fault! But I just see my would be child in him and I have tried to feel otherwise but I just can't.
I just feel this in silence because it is just wrong. But thankfully DF gives me space from him when I'm miscarring for the first few days .
At first when we started realising we needed help my DF was giving me the line of if it happens it happens if not it's fine we got 2 kids already! It made me so distraught to hear after misscarring! ... Now he knows better and actually is nearly as upset as me it didn't work.
But our relationship is starting to shake and it's like one more thing this secondary infertility is spreading it's sickness over.
I'm so tired of the views that we already have kids so we shouldnt be as devastated or heart broken after our losses! What BS lol.
I'm so angry at DF for resisting so much AC due to money reasons we have had the money but he won't let us spend it on this hence we have only been able to do 2 full ivf.
He won't let us do anymore.
Lucky I have gotten pg using only fertility drugs ect but I'd love to go get pgd ivf after so many MC but it's out of the question :-/.
So I just have to subject myself to pot luck and god knows how many MC.

Awful. Sad. Scared. Depressed. Isolated. Don't know where I fit in the real world as those who have kids like me can have more easily and there's no understanding or support.
Guess I could keep going on but I'll spare you all lol!
Big hugs to you all on this journey xoxox

[Mildez]

I was very keen to have children from a young age. When DH and I had our first together (I have a 14yr old from a previous relationship) it came as a complete surprise as I only skipped a few pills due to leaving them behind accidently whilst at a uni residential school. Just to be sure I didn't get pregnant I took the morning after pill just in case. AF was late and still didn't even click I could be pregnant. DD arrived early close to 8months later.

When our DD was a year old we started ttc again. I knew very quickly there was a problem. 3months in I had my first m/c. I was ok about this as working as a midwife showed me how normal this was (silly me thought the next pregnancy would bring me my next baby as that's what normally happens to others right?) Another 9months later so a year after starting to try again I fell pregnant again. This time things started going pear shaped right from the start. Slow rising HCG, nothing to show in the uterus on scan etc over a month of hell and eventually the pregnancy was diagnosed as unknown location. But it did resolve itself. Another 6months went by and I was pregnant again. I was so positive and thought everything would be ok this time. Routine tests showed low HCG for my gestation and I started bleeding. My Ob said I had m/c and to go home and forget I was ever pregnant. I was beside myself by now and wanted investigations. It turns out a month after my Ob said I had m/c this pregnancy was actually ectopic and I ended up having emergency surgery.

Following the surgery for ectopic I discovered the reason for our fertility problems. I have pelvic inflammatory disease and endometriosis. A huge surprise as this is usually caused from an STD. Something I have been fortunate never to have had. I was 25 when this happened. At the suggestion of my new Gynea I had further surgery 3 months later to give my remaining tube a good flush out and remove some endo and adhesions that were pinning my remaining tube. Some good news from this surgery was to find out although the outside of my tube was damaged the dye flowed through. The plan was to ttc a further 6months and then start IVF.

Of course 6 months ttc went by and no pregnancy. At around 10months after ttc post surgery we were all ready to start IVF. Much to our surprise on my 11th cycle ttc post 2nd surgery as I was ready to start my first stim cycle AF didn't arrive and I was finally pregnant. This resulted in my next DD born early 2011.

Knowing there would be a huge chance I would not get pregnant again we didn't bother preventing when DD was born in March 11. We continued to DTD as we normally would and hope we would be surprised. Unfortunately nothing happened in 2011 or 2012. Late 2012 my nephew was born sleeping so we prevented for 6months as although unlikely I didn't want to be finding myself pregnant so close to my nephews passing.

We started ttc again more seriously a year ago now. I fell pregnant in May 2013 but unfortunately slow rising HCG that dwindled away to nothing occurred again over a month period. I fell pregnant again in September. This time I didn't do HCG testing but scan at 5.5weeks revealed no sign of a uterine pregnancy just thickened lining and a week later I m/c naturally making this loss no5.

I wish I could give up ttc but the desire to have another baby is still very strong and the hope next time might bring it to us is still there. My DH who usually doesn't really care about me not getting pregnant has this year has been down in the dumps about it. This makes it hard for me to have that guilt that its my fault I can't get pregnant or if I do stay pregnant.

I am now 31 and we will keep ttc with the hope our last bundle comes to us. If not we may try IVF but at the moment financial commitments and my study means IVF just is not possible. When it is which will be 2 years away I am not sure if we will just give up or give it a go.

[Miss.B]

Hugs to you all

I, like so many others I guess, always felt like I should be so grateful for what I have. I do. I guess for me, not having had to struggle to conceive my first earth side child, is now proving extremely hard, as now I am struggling big time, why was it so easy before and not now?. Perhaps if falling pg was hard to begin with, I would be coping better now. I used to think of myself as very lucky, and now I'm not so sure. I know it's my age. I was 38 when I started IVF, then started again at almost 41 (huge fertility drop as my FS pointed out). Time is definitely not on my side. I recently read a book about couples going through fertility treatments, and it said that secondary infertility is often as hard, if not harder, than primary infertility. Yes, we have that child or two or three or more. But the longing to add to our families is very heart breaking if we cannot achieve that. I think it's particularly hard if you have only one child, as that longing to give them a sibling, to have someone to grow up with, to have (hopefully) around in their lives when mum and dad are no longer there, is hard to cope with. I don't want my DS to be an only child. I know it's not the end of the world, but I would love nothing more that to give him a playmate. Sadly, the age gap will now be at least 5 years, I really wanted 2 to 3. But I'm not even there. There might not even be a sibling for DS, and I struggle with that. DS has 3 older half siblings, but they are so much older (21, 25 and 29) they are more like an uncle and aunties to him than brother and sisters. It's hard