Tag: secondary infertility

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Learning to Embrace My Life – Focusing on the Positives of Having an Only Child

Erica2 Comments

Emotions are so very strange – I realized I think I am at a point where I no longer want another child. If I could snap my fingers and magically be pregnant today, I don’t think I would do it.

I’m not sure it would be the best choice for our family. I’m not sure we could afford it. I’m not sure my mental health could take it. I’m not sure it would be the best thing for my son, or for my marriage… I don’t know that I could still have the energy to be the type of mother I want to be…the list could go on.

It’s strange to say, but struggling with infertility has allowed (or forced) me to have the opportunity to evaluate my needs, my family’s needs, and our available resources. And the more I am truly honest with myself about it, the more I am beginning to slowly wonder if having one child may be the best thing for our family…

But I’m still sad about it. Bitter and spiteful about it on my worst days… It still occasionally feels like a gut-punch when yet another friend announces they’re pregnant (which seems to keep happening constantly…)

I’m sad that I’ll never experience being pregnant again. I’m sad that my family won’t look like an idealized version of something I’ve seen on t.v. (even though having more kids wouldn’t have guaranteed that anyway…)

I’m frustrated that it seems like everyone else got to choose exactly the life they wanted and didn’t have to suffer through infertility like my family did (I KNOW this is not a true statement – but it feels like it is sometimes – especially if I hang out on social media for too long…)

There are days when I’m so happy with our sweet little family of three – and I find myself feeling overwhelmingly grateful. And yet there are still days when I’m sobbing about the loss of this hypothetical child I’ll never get to meet.

All that to say, it’s a LOT of feelings. Some of my feelings seem like they are in direct conflict of one another, which is a bit confusing. I’m happy, yet sad… grateful, yet bitter… I’m trying to find space to hold and honor ALL my emotions at once. But it’s exhausting.

The first post I wrote about trying to get pregnant with a second child was back in 2019 – almost 5 years ago. I can’t believe I’ve been thinking about trying to conceive another child for that long. My son was only three years old at the time (*now he’s almost 8!)

At that point I hadn’t yet realized we were dealing with secondary infertility – that would be confirmed in early 2021.

We spent another year and a half vacillating between optimism and despair. It seemed like some treatments would potentially be promising, but then in January of 2023 our journey came to an abrupt end, and it was the beginning of really trying to process that we would probably never have another child.

2023 was a difficult year. I had been so afraid of starting the true process of grieving – I knew it would hurt a lot. And it did. I made the choice to start taking antidepressants again because I was struggling so much with everything.

I’ve done a lot of thinking and processing over the last year and a half through the feelings that have accompanied my infertility journey – and a few realizations recently came to the surface for me. Some of them are embarrassing realizations, but I don’t want to be ashamed of them – my feelings make me human, and it’s okay to admit my humanity. And Brené Brown says it’s good to be vulnerable and not live in shame (and she’s a smart lady!)

One major realization was that I found myself ready to start moving into a place of acceptance – I think I’m finally heading into that final stage of grief – which is wonderful, because it means healing has happened. It’s a very SLOW process, and I definitely have setbacks (aka. look up the term “grief burst”)… But I want to start focusing more on the positives of having an only child. I’ve heard a lot of the negatives, a LOT of the stigmas, but I hadn’t really researched the positives until recently.

Realizations About Myself, Secondary Infertility, and Having an Only Child

1. I was struggling with feelings of loneliness. The average number of children a family has differs depending on where you live in the world. Where I live in Texas, it’s much more common for families to have multiple kids, and I realized that I just truly didn’t know very many one-child families. Now if I lived in a place like New York or Seattle, according to Pew Research, my family of three would look more like the norm. Unfortunately, I have no plans to move to New York or Seattle, or other places where one-child families are becoming more and more common – so it can be pretty easy to feel like the odd one out.

“It can feel isolating if you’re the only one in your friend group who has an only child, especially if you are one and done, not by choice. You might feel left out when your friends discuss sibling relationships or baby/toddler stages (if your child is older). Feeling excluded by your friend group can be rough!”

excerpt from One & Done by Rebecca Greene (2023)


I wish I could say that I was more confident in being “different,” but I realized there is a huge part of me that just wants to fit in. It can be painful to not feel like anyone else shares your experience, or even desires it. And to be honest, I’m really tired of painful feelings.

2. My anxiety about being a “bad mom” was majorly triggered. When my son Calvin was about 3 or 4 years old, the “when are you going to have a baby brother or sister?” questions started. People would actually tell me that Calvin would be lonely as an only child. I began to feel like a bad mom because I couldn’t provide him with a sibling. I have a lot of insecurities and previous struggles regarding being a bad mother, so I’m pretty easily triggered when anyone insinuates that I’m not a good parent. Obviously, this is a personal thing that I need to work through (shout-out to my therapist!), and people’s uninformed comments and opinions do not have to make me feel lesser. But it’s hard to stand tall and proud when you are constantly being bombarded with ignorant comments from friends or family, or even random strangers!

3. I bought into a lot of the unfounded stigmas of only children without actually doing my research. When my husband and I first began talking about having children, having one wasn’t even an option because we didn’t want a “spoiled” child. I hate to admit that I bought into that stereotype so easily, but I did. Having siblings does not guarantee anything about how a child will turn out. I know some super down-to-earth only-child adults, and I know some pretty selfish adults who had siblings.

As far as the stereotype that onlies are lonely, that also does not have to be true. From the time Calvin was very young, he has been around many other kids at daycare, school, and church. I have tried to be more intentional lately to invite friends over to play at our house, and I think that has been a good thing for all of us. Calvin also has a more introverted personality, and honestly does not desire to be around tons of kids all the time. Each kid is different, and their relationship needs also differ.

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(Secondary) Infertility Grief – When Does it Stop?

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***here is my disclaimer before you read this post – after you read it, you may find yourself thinking
A) Really? ANOTHER post on infertility? I thought she moved on, why can’t she get over this?
B) Wow, Erica is in a really bad place, she needs to get some professional help.
C) Boy, Erica is really self-centered. Doesn’t she see how great her life is, and yet here she is being overly dramatic…

Here are my short answers to the above questions:

A) Yes, another post on infertility. The grief process is not linear, and sometimes I may be doing okay, and other times I may really be struggling. Right now, I’m struggling.
B) I am getting help – I have a therapist and am also planning to meet with my doctor about taking medicine for deprssion/anxiety.
C) I do recognize that I have many wonderful things in my life to be thankful for. That doesn’t make this hurt any less. My grief is valid.

Lastly, there is no pressure to read the rest of this post if you’re not in the headspace to do so, or if your empathy muscles feel particularly weak at the moment. Writing this was helpful for me, and I thought I’d put it out there just in case it’s helpful for someone else.

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As exciting as it is for me to feel that I’ve very much healed from a traumatic experience with postpartum depression back in 2016, that victory feels overshadowed right now by what feels like a losing battle with grief.

I thought I was moving on. I thought I was healing from this. So why is it hurting so much again?

Back in January, I decided it was time to move on from the dream of having another child. It really felt like the right decision at the time. And I think it was.

I started pursuing other dreams and interests. I began training for a half marathon (I’m up to 8 miles now!), I got more involved in my church and in local community events, and it was all very good.

But last month, a last little bit of naive hope came bubbling back up to the surface, and I began to wonder if maybe, just maybe, it could be possible for pregnancy to happen for us? What if we just casually decided to try again? What if, what if, what if???

I made a deal with myself: we could begin casually trying for a baby again if (and only if) I could keep my cool during the process. There was no need for me to convince myself that I was pregnant, there was no need to think that every little symptom meant something, and I definitely wouldn’t get all upset when my period started. I would go into it, knowing our chances were slim to none, and that would be okay.

You would think after living with myself for over 36 years that I would know that there was no way I could be casual about this. And no surprise, I definitely was not!

I am ashamed to confess how quickly I devolved into past habits. In two weeks’ time, I convinced myself I was pregnant, went out and bought brand new (expensive!) pregnancy tests, and was devastated when the results were negative. Immediately, all the bitterness and rage came back. And I couldn’t believe it. How was I back in exactly the same place I had been 6 months ago? I thought I had processed this grief, I thought I had moved on!

Maybe I never really moved on, maybe I just deferred my grief and pain for a while.

I’m honestly scared to face the ultimate decision of permanently moving on. Right now, I continue to try to defer that moment by telling myself “I’m only 36, I have a few more years.”

Will it get easier then? Or do you just live with this constant pain all the time? And how do you do that gracefully?

In the past month, I’ve had four friends that have become pregnant. One of them with their first, three of them with their second child. And to be honest, it hurts. It hurts a lot.

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The End of Our Infertility Journey

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***note: I originally drafted this post in January of 2023, when the emotions were still very fresh. I have done a lot of healing over the past few months, but it has not been a quick or easy process. A lot of ugly parts of me have been revealed during this process – anger, bitterness, resentment – for the people who have stuck by my side during some of my worst seasons, thank you. Thank you all for giving me grace as I try to become a better, healthier version of myself.

This is the third, and what I believe will be the final, update on our infertility journey. In May of 2020, my husband and I started trying for a second child. In January of 2023, we stopped trying. After 2 and a half years of this emotional roller coaster from hell, we finally decided to quit.

There’s a lot more to the story, but if you just want the cliff notes, that’s about it. I suppose it’s not really the end of the journey, because now it’s time to take a detour on the path called grief. I wish that the journey was just over and I could go back to my life before. I wish I could feel like who I was before we started trying to have another baby, but I don’t know how to do that. We will be forever changed by this experience, and I’m just looking forward to the day when it doesn’t hurt so much.

Because I’m weird, or perhaps a bit obsessive, I tracked how many cycles I’d had since we began this process and figured out how many times we ended up trying (and failing) to get pregnant. So here are the stats below:

31 months total
35 cycles total
30 = # of times we tried to get pregnant
5 = # of cycles we took a break from trying
17 = Longest consecutive stretch trying for a baby

Over a period of 31 months, I had 35 cycles.
Out of those 35, we made an effort to get pregnant 30 different times.
There were 5 cycles that I purposely opted out of trying because I needed an emotional breather every once and a while.
Our longest consecutive stretch of intentionally trying was 17 cycles in a row.

I don’t know if it’s helpful or not for me to see these numbers, but in a way I feel like it validates my experience. I can look at the numbers and understand a little more why it has been so hard. 30 is a lot of times to feel emotionally shattered.

So what happened? Why did we decide to quit trying?

In the last update I gave in October of 2022, I had just talked about how we had recently seen a reproductive endocrinologist and that potentially we could try one of the less-invasive treatments: intrauterine insemination (IUI).

After thinking about it, we came to the decision that starting in January of 2023, we would give IUI a try, up to three times. If it didn’t work, then we would plan to call it quits.

But not every couple is eligible for IUI. There’s a lot of factors at play – sperm count, number of healthy eggs left, fallopian tubes being open/blocked, etc.

When we last went to the doctor back in August, it looked like we were good candidates for this procedure. But before going through all the trouble of attempting IUI in January, we wanted to double check that everything still looked promising, so we did a few tests again. This time, the test results were not good. What our results showed is that things had changed, and we were now ineligible for IUI.

“Let us know if you’re interested in pursuing IVF.”

That was the last message we got from our doctor’s office.

But I had already decided that I was not going to pursue in vitro.

I’ll pause here for a moment because I just know someone out there wants to ask, “if you want another baby so badly, why aren’t you going to try in vitro?”

Infertility and the journey of trying to have a child is a very personal, not to mention difficult, journey. What’s right for one person may not be right for another person. And that’s okay. And when a couple decides their journey is over, it’s important to validate that decision.

For me, the mental and emotional toll of not getting pregnant every month is something I can’t continue doing. The past year I found myself struggling with depression often. At times, I found it hard to find the energy to get out of bed.

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