Infertility, formal google definition "inability to conceive children or carry a pregnancy to term". The secondary definition, surprisingly goes as follows "the inability of land to sustain crops or vegetation; unproductiveness'. Not being able to get pregnant or even maintain a pregnancy is hard enough, why did they have to add vegetation in the mix? I've been dealing with infertility for almost 12 years, I have what you call "secondary infertility", this basically means a woman is no longer capable of getting pregnant or sustaining a pregnancy after prior childbirth. This type of infertility is almost never talked about, heck, the mere mention of infertility make folks look the other way. This is an unspoken taboo with women all over the world. You are, in most cases, looked at like a broken toy, this also includes the illogical thoughts that rise up in our heads such as "am I even a real woman? What am I good for if I can't have a child or my husband won't love me anymore because I can't give him a kid". I always thought my husband's family hated me for not giving him a child. There was so much pressure to live up to an invisible standard from a mother-in-law who, wanted a grandchild from her oldest son. It was, and still is really hard when a family member (husband's side) ask me "what's the hold up", or "what are you two waiting for". I know that not everyone knows about my infertility but there is a certain respect one should give to another when dealing with the topic of childbearing. When it comes to secondary infertility, in my opinion, it seems to be the one type of infertility that hurts the most. It stings a little more when your body decides that it doesn't want to procreate anymore. I would sometimes feel like I had no right to talk about it since I had a child already. When I did find myself in conversation about it, someone would say "well, it's different for you, you have a kid" or they would say "you don't really have infertility since you gave birth before". I wholeheartedly understood where these women were coming from, they have never experienced a baby moving inside of them or them getting sick at the most inopportune times of the day of pregnancy. What they failed to understand about me was the possibility that I may never give birth again or even feel the flutter of movement within my womb. My now 16 year old son, from the age of two through fourteen, would periodically say "mama, you should have another baby" or he would say "mama, I think I need to have a baby sister".

I cried so much around that time, it literally felt like my soul was dying with each tear. The love I had for my son was so great, I wanted to share it with another child, a child that was a product of my marriage. The baby-making business is very serious, if you aren't capable of doing what is suppose to come naturally then you are looked at as obsolete, damaged goods or an empty vessel. Though full term pregnancy hasn't happened for me yet, I thank God for the science of IVF.