3 million women suffer — why doesn’t anyone talk about it?

(May 24, 2010)--Karen*, 40, could get pregnant, but she couldn’t stay pregnant. After five miscarriages, she and her husband decided they couldn’t take it any more. So about nine months ago, they simply stopped trying.

Karen is relieved to be out of that emotionally and physically draining limbo, but part of her continues to grieve. “We'll always wonder what it would have been like to have the family we intended,” says Karen, a lawyer who lives near Washington, D.C. “The pregnancy that lasted the longest had a due date in June, and I'm guessing I'll always think of that in June.”

Karen went through the classic trauma of in fertility — seesawing from hope to despair, wanting to run screaming from all pregnant women — but with one twist: she already has a five-year-old biological daughter.

Karen suffers from “secondary infertility,” defined by RESOLVE, the national infertility association, as the inability to become pregnant or to carry a pregnancy to term following the birth (without assisted reproductive medications or technologies) of one or more biological children.

“Inability” is generally measured as no success after one year of trying if you’re under 35 or six months of trying if you’re over 35, and can be caused by reductions in fertility due to age or to such things as thyroid problems, an STI, tubal blockage, or ovarian cysts. Or, more troublingly, the causes can go unexplained.

According to estimates by RESOLVE, over three million Americans are affected by secondary infertility. While they outnumber those who experience primary infertility, they are less likely to seek medical or psychological help.

“Secondary infertility is very common, but often invisible,” says Barbara Collura, RESOLVE’s executive director, in part because of the common response: “You already have a kid — what are you complaining about?”...Read more

Source: Babble