It’s hard to describe what it’s like holding your child as they die in your arms.

We’re not quite ready for another one yet. So I made a virtual baby instead.

It seemed fitting that I close up shop, reproductively speaking, in the days before Donald Trump’s inauguration.

It is on those rainy days, when the house feels too small and the hours are passing too slowly, and the daily struggles feel larger than usual, that I make a point to stop and look at my son and relish in his mop of blonde hair and his big, bright blue eyes and I remind myself of the heartache and pain we once felt in our journey to get him, and my heart fills with a rush of gratitude.

It feels selfish and ungrateful to grieve secondary infertility.

There is more to having a child then simply having the desire to have a child.

“You are giving your son the greatest gift there is, a sibling,” a friend told me when I announced that I was 14 weeks pregnant with our second child. Her congratulations stung.