It was December 2017 when my family plans were first turned upside down by a sudden and unexpected miscarriage. My son Ben was two and a half at the time, and settling into preschool well, so it felt like the perfect time to expand our family.
We got pregnant right away with him, so when we started trying again, I just assumed (somewhat naively) that everything would be fine. We fell pregnant pretty quickly too, and everything felt like it was perfectly falling into place... until I discovered I was miscarrying somewhere between 7-8 weeks.
But even though it was upsetting, initially I just saw it as a very temporary disruption to our plans. It was inconvenient for sure, but we would just take a few months to heal and then try again, I reasoned. At that stage, I couldn’t even have begun to imagine how this temporary pause would eventually end up feeling more like a permanent stop, as several more miscarriages followed.
There’s so much I could write about my experiences with secondary infertility; the gradual creeping sense of disappointment, the slowly unfolding realization that we may not have any more kids, that heavy weight of grief that has ensued after each loss, and the endless frustration I feel about not being able to provide a sibling for our son.
The truth is that secondary infertility is a fairly misunderstood condition, and it can be a pretty lonely experience.
It can leave you feeling alienated from your friends who have children, but also a bit alienated from the infertility community too.
At times in this journey I’ve really struggled to relate to my mom friends – to share in their joy over their growing families, to laugh along with their sibling jokes, or to empathize when they’re struggling to manage ALL of the kids.
In fact, I’ve often felt it would be easier to just avoid other moms altogether, especially when my losses were very raw. But that’s basically impossible when you already have a kid and your life is already full of school drop offs, sports clubs, playdates and parties. So I’ve just learned to weather all those well-meant questions like, ‘Have you got just the one?’ and ‘When are you going to have another?’ with a fake smile.
Equally, retreating into the infertility community can be fraught with difficulties too. There’s often this unspoken sense - and occasionally it’s actually been expressed aloud too - that you’re not really infertile if you already have a child.
Of course, that’s not true. Like many areas of health, our fertility is not static. But nonetheless, I’ve often felt like I constantly have to explain my presence in those groups – especially on social media, where photos of my son might also inadvertently appear and become a trigger for someone else’s pain.
I also think there can be a real guilt associated with admitting that you already have a child but desperately want another. It’s really easy to end up feeling like you’re being greedy, or even a bit ungrateful to God for the child you already have.
But the truth is that wanting another child, and wanting your child to have a sibling, is not something to feel bad about. It’s a good thing. In fact, I would even say that it is a God thing, because family is God’s idea after all.
I am so grateful for my son, and now that I’ve battled infertility and loss I feel that more than ever. I fully realise just what a gift he is and how blessed we are to have had him, when I know that so many couples don’t ever get that chance.
But in the end, whether infertility means that you’ve had no children, or that you got stuck after one, it’s heart-breaking when it’s not what you had hoped for and expected, and as Proverbs 13:12 says, ‘Hope deferred makes the heart sick’.
So let’s not draw comparisons with one another, and let's not act like our pain can be measured as ‘less’ or ‘more’ than someone else’s. Loss is loss, and pain is pain. It really doesn’t come in shades and degrees. All of it is hard.
Instead, let’s find the courage to lean into the difficult parts of our own stories, and let’s support one another to keep holding onto hope as we do.
But how exactly do you hold onto hope when all the odds feel stacked against you? As I write this, I’m about to start fertility treatment for what will probably be our final attempt to conceive a second child and provide a sibling for our son. I am still very much hoping for another child, but with three miscarriages already behind me, and having also just reached the age of 40, the statistics are no longer on my side, and the path ahead feels more uncertain than ever.
So here’s the hope that I’m fiercely gripping onto. Even if my future turns out to look very different from the one I had hoped for, I can still trust that it will ultimately be good, because my Father God is good! And His Word promises me that trusting in Him will never leave me disappointed.
It takes real bravery to let get of those parts of your story that you can’t control, and choose to put your trust in God alone - rather than just trusting in your own hopes for outcomes, timescales or plans around having a baby.
But isn’t that what this journey of faith is all about? Discovering that our hope is in Him alone – not in our circumstances, but in who He is, and what He has already done for us.
Anna is an experienced Christian writer, blogger, speaker, and an award-winning marketing professional. She is also a recurrent miscarriage survivor, a coffee lover and bookworm, a travel enthusiast, a live music fan, a gatherer of people, and a big believer in the healing power of words. Her first published book, ‘Sand Between Your Toes: Inspirations for a Slower, Simpler, More Soulful Life’ comes out in January 2021 and is available for pre-order now. She can also be found writing on her blog, Notes on Life at www.annakettle.com
