Having Seconds

I have secondary infertility. That means that after being primarily infertile, my body in a fleeting flash of lucidity figured out how to get and stay pregnant, then sank back into stupidity. What will it be termed if I am finally able to have another baby? Tertiary infertility?

A non-member friend of mine has two girls. Her oldest is my son's age (they're best friends.) Her little girl is nearly three years old. My friend certainly isn't the most gushing of mothers I've known, but she decided to be at home for her girls and is completely honest. Like many moms, her preschooler frustrates her a hundred times a day. The other week, when our kids were playing, she looked at her youngest daughter and said to me, "You know, I wouldn't change anything and I'm happy how things are, but I would have been okay with having just one child."

I was a little bowled over. Pained. (Yes.) Quietly exasperated. (Certainly--but more at myself.) To cover my feelings I said, "Well, go find the pink slip to your daughter; I'll take her!" My friend knows I have struggled with endometriosis in the past, but I know she didn't say what she did to wound me. Nor did I take offense at it. But it reminded me that there is a clear division--one we don't want there, but it's there nonetheless--between the haves and the have-nots. If you are infertile in any way and you want children, a person who has never dealt with infertility simply doesn't understand. A person can fake sympathy, but she can't fake empathy.

Circling my head have been second thoughts over investing emotionally in another round of workups at the gynecologist, although I've never thought twice about wanting another baby. That's a certainty. I've watched friends fight like lionesses to get pregnant and have their babies. I've held their babies while that twinge in my heart quietly sings its familiar tune of "me, too, please." And as I've slowly prepared my body the last year-and-a-half by becoming more fit and healthy, I've realized: Hon, you already ARE emotionally invested.

Reading in Alma a while ago, I got a hefty kick in the behind: "Or do ye suppose that the Lord will still deliver us, while we sit upon our thrones and do not make use of the means which the Lord has provided for us?" Um... well, that's decided then. Everything has been prepared. Get thee to the doctor! Get to work! So I flex my own lioness claws, trusting God for the second time that I'm ready.