LTTTC and Secondary Infertility - What are your experiences?

Those of you who have put up with my posts over the years know that while I have an almost teenage DD from a previous relationship, I have been trying to conceive a child with my DP for over eight years.

After six rounds of ovulation induction and nine rounds of IVF - all unsuccessful - I have pretty much resigned myself to the fact that I will never have another child.

Secondary infertility (when you have trouble conceiving after having had one or more children), has its unique challenges. From everything to feeling guilt you cannot give your child a sibling, or your new partner a child, to frustration from hearing from others that you should be grateful you have at least one child.

I know I am not alone, and there are other wonderful BB women who are going through the same thing looking for a place to chat.

So... Let's chat about LTTTC and secondary infertility. What is your experience? How do you cope?

Honestly, I don't cope. I feel broken and defeated. I am torn between giving up to focus my time and energy on DD and continuing to fight so she will have a sibling (or siblings) to lean on when her parents are gone...

You & I are on the same page, Juniper.
The worst bit by far, I when DD asks why she doesn't have a brother or sister.
Why can't mummy put a baby in her tummy?
It just sucks!

My story ..
It took 7 months to conceive DD1 . Everything was fine and normal . We waited until we were ready to try again thinking it would be easy road like the first time .
Nope

I Fell pregnant within 2 months and I had my first MC , I'll never forget it . I had several more plus chemical pregnancies I had scans done not born could be found , I was about to make an appointment with a fertility specialist when I fell pregnant with DD2 which was just over 2 years after we started trying ..
It was a long and emotional process . We want a third baby always have but we are so scared that we are going to have the same problems as we did with DD2 , I don't think I can cope with it :/

Double

This is where I belong too! With two children and have been ttc since we had dd (on and off) she is 6 1/2. Two mc under our belt. I have just booked on for a FET this is my last attempt for medical involvement!

Hi!

This is just the support forum I've been looking for! We're desperately trying for no.2 after having no problems with our first. A year, 2 mc and several chemical pregs later still no luck. It's all so emotional - obviously I love my DD to bits but the longing for another baby never fades. I feel guilty for not being happy with what I have. It doesn't help that every member of my original mothers group have had or are about to have their second :(. We're having one last try before looking for help (which is a bit daunting in itself).

Venting feels good - thanks! And it's nice (not quite the right word sorry) to hear about everyone else's journeys too.

N2L, from the bottom of me heart, thank you for this thread. This is where I belong and I hope to be free to talk about my issues with secondary infertility without feeling guilty because I already have one healthy child earth side.

As far as how I am coping with the SI (secondary infertility) I don't think I am coping at all. I have been so depressed with it all, its debilitating. Because I had no trouble falling pg to start off with, having fallen pg on the very first cycle with my firstborn son (even though that ended with a late term miscarriage) and then fallen pg with my second son on the second cycle, I am now finding it very difficult falling pg again. I am so scared of not being able to give DS a sibling, it's pretty much all I can think about these days, and it hurts like hell. It's also affecting my relationship with my DP as I often feel angry with him that I wanted to try earlier and he didn't want to, and that I could have done more cycles but he didn't want to, as he was always putting the breaks on saying that it would be easy for us to fall pg again, like it did in the beginning. Well it's not easy now, I am now 43 and I feel like I have run out of time. I was shocked to hear from my DP, for the first time just after our second FET failed just before Christmas, that it was OK if we kept going until I've had enough. Why couldn't he be that supportive earlier on? Although I am happy with his new attitude, I feel that we've lost too much time, maybe it's just too late.

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.

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! :grouphug: I hope we can all find the balance between treasuring what we have and striving for what we want. xx

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

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.

Hugs to you all :grouphug:

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 :(

Hugs to all

Miss B your comments are exactly what I feel. Yes I long for a child but more for my DD than for me I too worry that she wont have anyone when we are not around. I make sure she spends as much time as possible with her little cousins as they will be the closets thing she has to a sibling. Don't give up hope I conceived DD at 43 yes I know I went through heaps but sometimes age doesn't matter what matters is finding the right little egg that will stick.

I am seriously thinking of seeing someone to talk about how I feel at this stage apart from this forum I haven't espressed my longing and I just bury it deep down. I don't want to wake up one day and have it hit me like a tonne of bricks

--VENT WARNING--

I've been wanting a another baby since G was 3mo, she's now over 2yrs and all we've had are mcs and chemical pregs. All my mothers group mums have now had their second - even the one who was adamant she didn't want any more kids. It just hurts so much. I know they're not trying to rub it in, but every conversation reminds me of what I don't have. We were just talking about toilet training & they are all too busy to try because they have little babies as well (which I fully understand!) and apparently I'm lucky that I only have one child to worry about (there's the dagger in my heart!). It just a really sucky situation, and I needed to vent somewhere safe :) x

twollamas, I hear you! Most of my mothers' group has already had another and one has even had 2 more (not twins)! Like you, we started TTC fairly early after DD was born (5 months) and just have 2 m/c, 23 months apart, to show for it... Lol, and I think DD is the only one still in nappies in the group too! Makes me feel like a complete failure some days! You'd be welcome to join us in the LTTTC group, if you want; not everyone there is doing assisted conception, some of us are just simply long-term TTC'ers... xx

Thanks for the support juniper76 - it's easier to deal with when you know you're not alone :) How do I find the LTTTC group? (I get lost with all the threads!) x

You can find us here: https://www.bellybelly.com.au/forums...2014-a-197227/

Pretty quiet in here.....

Really struggling ATM with all the preggo bellies around me. Luckily they are not too close, touch wood (how horrible of me) eg, in the family/close friends, but I swear they are EVERYWHERE. I never thought I would struggle this much. It seems they will be there where ever I go, since we go to indoor play centers, parks, etc, I guess where there's mums with kids there will be bellies. Anyone feel like this? Sometimes the feeling is just soooo overwhelming, I struggle with daily life. Also, my birthday is coming up and I ain't getting younger, and this.does.not.help.one.little.bit :(

Yep, I see the same things. And it doesn't help that we've had 2 new nieces born already this year and another who just had a 1st birthday party. I'm surrounded by babies... I love the stage DD is at (3yo), but still miss the baby stage...

I feel like the mm/c derailed my relationship with DD (I couldn't cope and just retreated into myself for a while) and I don't know how to get it back. I keep hoping another baby will help me find my way back to it, but I guess it could also make it worse...??
(Sorry, that was a bit off topic, and I almost deleted it for that reason, but decided it was something I needed to admit and face and so left it there...)

That's tough hun :hug:. Do you think you feel bad because you feel that you've let your DD down by not being there for her when you had your mm/c, or that you feel guilty by not able to give her a brother or sister? Sometimes I feel so bad that I might not be able to give DS a sibling. Other times I feel like the universe is trying to punish me or something, I lost my first baby, then I lost a little one in my early m/c, I feel like maybe the universe is saying you can only handle one....the fact that there might be a big age gap between the two (big IF there with be two in the first place) is also hard. Why is so damn hard to add to our families :(

It's probably a bit of both.

And I've thought similar things as you, about the universe punishing me, but it was more like I'd failed the test with DD and wasn't a good enough parent to deserve another. Haven't thought that in a while now (thankfully) - I've seen too many "bad" parents (eg drug addicted mother who caused her child to be born severely mentally and physically disabled and then let him almost starve to death as an infant before he was taken away from her at 4mo and just had another child this week - #6 for her - which was taken away from her immediately this time) have child after child to believe that I'm any less "deserving", so my focus is more on the issues that are causing our IF - ie endo, DOR (caused by the endo) and MFI. Which means, rather than feeling "punished", I mostly just feel angry (about all the Drs who dismissed my pain, leaving my endo undiagnosed and running rampant for 20 years to cause my share of our IF problems)...

Yeah, that's what I'm thinking now, about not being a good enough parent to DS so that's why perhaps I'm not getting pg with another one. Thanks for that perspective hun, I think I really needed to hear that. Deep down I know I'm a good parent, it's just that sometimes it's easy to blame my less-than-perfect parent moments for not being given another blessing.

Hugs to you both! I'm sure you are both amazing mums -and that's precisely why you sometimes feel guilty about 'not being good enough' xx

I totally hear you Miss B - I have to consciously remind myself to smile at the pregnant women I pass rather than glare at them :(

Yep hand up here too, I must somehow not deserve another baby because mine is shared care with my ex her father! He has her as much as me so I don't have her all the time like other mums usually do in break ups!
But then I just tell myself to get a grip lol... Yeah right! How hard it is to get a grip on this sec IF thing!
The whole thing plays on your mind like a very long very bad movie!
I'm doing donor eggs I swear if It will help. I'm tired of trying new things over n over to only fail.
It's no wonder why it's hard to stay positive! It's the longest and hardest battle of my entire life soul searching and destroying if I let it get me down and reality is you have to be made of stone for it not to get you down.

My best friend is pregnant and due the day before my mc would have been.
Argh!
I'm still here after soooo long! I get to watch the babies around me grow while I'm still at the ttc stage so wishing our turn would come next. :-/.

I want to run and hide from the pregnants!
But have to pretend I'm fine and I'm not really.

Big hugs xoxo