I THOUGHT GETTING PREGNANT AGAIN
WOULD BE FAIRLY STRAIGHFORWARD. IT WASN’T…

So, when I was at school and things I never really had any aspirations to have a family, and, yes about 2 years into knowing each other… And got a pregnancy test. The only thing I really remember about it was the vivid blue cap and this sort of, you know, feeling of just waiting for these kind of things that change your life, these lines to appear. And, yes, it was a plus.

William was born in the middle of winter and we were really enjoying it and we found that our relationship was going very well as well. We really loved each other. And as a family unit we were doing really well. We’d like to have another. As you do and so I thought this’ll be fairly straightforward because without even really trying we already had one so this will be easy. And it wasn’t.

And so a year passed and we didn’t fall pregnant. I started trying to use ovulation tests and they didn’t really pick up my cycles very well. My cycles were all over the place. So, I went to my GP. She sent me off to have a scan done because we suspected polycystic ovarian syndrome – so PCOS. So, yes, I have PCOS.

So that was probably about 6 years into our trying to conceive journey so it took a long time to figure out what was going on. I spoke to the doctor again and she was really pleased with me and she said, do you know perhaps it isn’t just meant to be and perhaps you just need to make your peace with not having another.

I’d had a couple of early losses as well. It’s very difficult to accept that you have that taken away from you. And then I didn’t have a period for ages. And I did a test and this time one of the fancy digital ones with words. So, after all this time we were pregnant. He was fine, everything went fine. When you have secondary infertility it’s difficult to know who to talk to. And I think that is something that is really typical of people who are struggling with secondary infertility. It’s something we don’t talk about as a society.

That’s one of the reasons I’m doing this. It’s quite cathartic. And I think more women should talk about what’s happened to them. The more you talk about it, the easier it becomes to process your own journey. So there we go. 

Janet, UK (2019)

The videos and stories shared here are personal and do not constitute medical advice.

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