When you can't have another baby...

Women who've got pregnant once tend to expect to be able to do it again, and yet apparently about a third of the patients in fertility clinics have been pregnant before, and are experiencing what's known as secondary infertility.

It's a difficult issue. GPs are often slow to refer patients to specialists for secondary infertility, assuming they'll get pregnant naturally if they keep trying, and couples themselves tend to delay seeking help because they don't believe they can have a fertility problem.

So how can it be that someone manages to get pregnant once, and then can't again? It is possible for problems to develop, or for a minor problem to become more serious, and age can also play a role here. It may be easier to overcome a minor fertility problem when you are in your early thirties. By the time you are approaching forty, the same problem combined with a reduction in your fertility may mean you don't get pregnant.

I was speaking to a consultant about this yesterday, and was surprised to hear that some of the patients who find it hardest to cope with fertility problems are those who are experiencing secondary infertility. For me, the raw yearning you feel when you can't have a child is never going to be quite the same when you can't have a second, or third. Of course, that doesn't make it any easier, and perhaps some people find it particularly tough because they know what they are missing? What do you think ?