‘The chance that we will succeed in having a second child is actually as good as zero’

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Grieving your unfulfilled desire to have a child while you already have a child, not everyone understands that. Marije (35) is mother of Liv (4). The first pregnancy was a surprise, but having a second child now seems impossible.

“My daughter presented herself completely unexpectedly. My husband and I are colleagues, we met when I was almost thirty. On my thirtieth birthday I found out I was pregnant. We had just been dating for six months, didn’t live together and both worked on projects abroad. I was on the pill, we weren’t working with children at all.

Right through the pill

I was in Ireland when I wondered: shouldn’t I have had my period already? Even though I had irregular periods before, this time I knew I was pregnant right away – no idea why. I did a test in the hotel room. That evening I was going to call my boyfriend – now my husband – but I didn’t dare tell them I was pregnant. Once home, ten days later, I gave him the pregnancy test. I will never forget his face, he was in complete shock.

We decided to go for it because we both really wanted it and our life was stable enough. We moved in together and got married, that was so practical. Life was gaining momentum. Suddenly I was married, I had left home and hearth to move in together and we had a child. That took some getting used to, for both of us.

A second

A friend told me that all my life I had been saying that I would have trouble having children. Apparently I’ve always felt that way subconsciously. When our daughter came I thought: maybe my feeling was wrong all along. The wish for the second has always been there, I would like three. So at a certain point we had the conversation: what do we want? I wanted to have children very soon, but because my father became ill and passed away, we decided to postpone our attempt for a second one.

Also read – ‘Madam, you are less fertile’ >

Fertility Treatment

When our daughter was two, we went for it. But after a year of trying it still didn’t work. We went to the doctor, who referred us to the hospital.

Research showed that the quality of my husband’s semen was not good. We don’t know if it has deteriorated or if it has always been that way, because of course we had never had it looked at before. We did a number of artificial inseminations, but after three failed attempts, we were referred to another hospital. Every time we got there we got worse news.

“Every time we got to the hospital, we got worse news”

The egg supply turned out to be very low for me, as you can see in the period before the menopause. That was also a huge downer. We were eligible for ICSI, which we are now in the middle of, when the chances of it succeeding are actually almost zero – we do this more because we really want to give it our all. That makes this a strange phase.

We will soon be talking to a social worker about this process. The funny thing is: even though we know that the chance is nil, there is still a glimmer of hope. The fact that we have been shot by the pill makes it so wry that it doesn’t work now. Then you realize what a miracle it is to have a child, we are very grateful for that.

Discuss

My advice for others in the same situation? Try not to lose sight of each other and what you already have. As a woman, you may experience the process differently than your partner. Talk about it, discuss every step of the way: do we still want this, is this going too far? So that you don’t lose each other during the process, because that’s hard enough.”

This article can be found in Kek Mama 07-2022.

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