Plei, I ask this is all ignorance: are those two separate topics?

Yes, actually!

Though the infertility *boards* as I recall tend to be more like the regular TTC boards, but weepier. The blogs, OTOH, are a mix of heartbreaking and hilarious.

Oh okay. 'cause the blogs are just one person's account, with them having control over content and tone? I get it. Sorry for my ignernce.

And, too add to the interest, IME, secondary infertility sites are much different that primary infertility sites. If you have been diagnosed with secondary infertility, primary infertility sites are not always friendly places to be because the general feeling is "At least you have a baby. Shut up and be happy about that and go away."

I could see that being the case.

pun intended, presumably?

But of course.

I suspect that infertility boards/blogs would have driven me to commit unspeakable acts. I also hate the idea that just because you have one child, you should be shunned because you're finding it difficult to conceive another. I still remember in the wake of the miscarriage from my first pregnancy, I had someone say to me, when I expressed concern about being able to get pregnant again, "Well you really need to stop complaining-- at least you know you CAN get pregnant even if you can't carry it."

Given that a fair number of the infertility bloggers were recurrent m/c vets, the blogs would've been okay.

"Well you really need to stop complaining-- at least you know you CAN get pregnant even if you can't carry it."

...

I will admit, when I was struggling to have even ONE kid, I really didn't have a lot of sympathy to spare for people who were having problems going for more.

It's a seriously visceral kind of pain, with no logic or reason to it.

Oh totally. I can remember feeling that way when someone was trying for number 2 or beyond was upset. But, hindsight being 20/20 and all, they both hurt really really a lot and is horrible and I wish so many women didn't have to go through it.

My best friend from high school, with whom I am still very close, had a baby after many miscarriages. He was born looking healthy and beautiful but had a rare genetic disorder and died a few months later, having never left the hospital save for his last weekend, during which my friend and her husband chose to take him home (the docs thought he'd last for hours but they got to have him for an entire weekend).

Later that year, when her mother in law was introducing my friend to someone at a wedding party, and the subject of motherhood came up, my friend's m-i-l said, "Well, I had a grandson, for a few minutes. It didn't take."

I am not making this shit up.