Adventures In Secondary Infertility
by: Maggie Rush Vinciguerra


Infertility is crap. Secondary infertility a special kind of crap because you sit in this weird limbo-land of being infertile while you already have a child. Those without kids think you have no business being upset because, hey, you already HAVE a child, while those who’ve had kids with no difficulty just seem to think your problems are just stress related, or all in your mind. And there you sit, knowing first-hand the joy of having a child, wondering if you’ll ever be able to have another one.

January : After nearly 8 months of calculated trying, starting when my daughter was just 6 mos old (and yes, everyone did think I was completely insane for starting so soon) I began to wonder if something was wrong. And then, just as I was about to make my first appointment with a specialist, I discovered I was pregnant. Finally. My turn. And then one morning at around 6 weeks, I lost it.

Blighted ovum. Chemical pregnancy. Very common. Wait a month, try again. Don’t worry.

March: I followed the doctors orders and miraculously, I got pregnant again right away. I held my breath until my first OB appointment - but at 7 weeks we saw a strong heartbeat and I exhaled. Told the family and a few friends. At 10 weeks, I had another routine checkup and when my doctor squinted her eyes at the ultrasound monitor, then asked my husband to please turn out the lights so she could get a better look, I knew it was over. No more heartbeat. Less than 24 hours later I was out cold, undergoing a D&C.

Don’t worry. Its for the best. Our bodies know what to do when fetuses are ‘not compatible with life.”
The only thing I was compatible with after that was a big bottle of wine.

April: I waited. Recovered. “Untold” everyone who knew, drank wine and rode the hormone rollercoaster as my levels went crashing through the floor. Mercifully, spring had arrived and I spent all the time I could with my 16 mo daughter. Unmercifully it seemed like everyone around me was pregnant again and/or asking me “so when are you going to for #2.” I had to fight the urge to tell them “AS SOON AS I STOP MISCARRYING YOU ASSHOLE!!!”

In the meantime, I turned 35 and tried my best not to have a nervous breakdown now that I was officially at the magic age of sharply declining fertility and withering eggs, according to Newsweek and Good Morning America. My husband and I also tried again, even though in retrospect, I probably wasn’t ready.

June: The day before my wedding anniversary I took an HPT. 2 faint lines. 6 more tests and $75 later, the news was still positive. Decided to tell my husband at our anniversary dinner, the news couched in caveats and guarded optimism, of course. I thought finally the statistics MUST be on my side this time around. What could the odds possibly be of three in a row? Two weeks later I miscarried again. I knew the drill.

Bad luck. Crappy odds. Its probably nothing.

After more wine, a lot of self pity and a talk with my OB, we agreed it was time to get some answers. “I think its just shitty luck” she told me “but if I were you ( and she was me, more or less, a 35 year old quasi-type A mother of one) I’d want to find out for sure.” So I promptly signed up with the Bruce Springsteen of Reproductive Endocrinologists and we got to work. Once a week for the next 3 months I made my hour long pilgrimage to the U pper East Side of Manhattan to get poked, prodded, sampled and pumped with saline. All the while expecting to bump into some 40-something celebrity IVFer in the elevator.

September: The bottom line? Low progesterone. Which, at the end of the day, is one of the better diagnoses to get as far as fertility problems go. My RE told me that it could likely be the explanation for at least 2 of the 3 miscarriages I had, but there was no way to be 100% sure. The treatment: progesterone suppositories for the last two weeks of every cycle (or first 10 weeks of a pregnancy, if you’re lucky enough to conceive and make it that far). As one mom described it, ’cream cheese up the hoo-ha.” (fortunately it wasn’t nearly that bad).

March: So now here I sit, 26 weeks pregnant, with my insides being pummeled by the pint-sized Joe Frasier in my belly, and a 2 year old who’s developed her own very special and effective brand of hell raising. I feel incredibly fortunate to have made it this far, and horribly guilty for the fear and apprehension I have (like any mom expecting #2) about what life will soon be like with 2 hell raisers instead of one. Am I allowed to even be apprehensive, now that I’ve been through the “big I?”

I’m still looking for the lesson in all of this - Perseverance? Being grateful for what you have? That women are immeasurably tougher and more resilient than men when it comes to this kind of stuff? Faith? Drugs? The power of wine? Who knows. I certainly don’t think that I got here through hard work and diligence, I’m lucky (blessed, even), had access to great resources and medical care, and know damn well that so many other women have it a lot worse than I do, as far as this stuff is concerned. I also know that its not over yet - I have 3 months to go before I deliver, and then face the dilemma of whether or not I want to go through all of this again and try for a third child. We’ll see. I’m not sure I’m ready to take on tertiary infertility quite yet.

Maggie lives in upstate NY and is mother to Anna, wife of Josh. Maggie has recently discovered the joys of part-time work and is employed by a publishing company in Albany, NY. She also plans to get back to her little painting and jewelry-making gig (www.cheekychic.net) as soon as she has some free time. Ha ha ha ha.