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Secondary Infertility: A Personal Story of Loss and Grief
Journal article   Open access   Peer reviewed

Secondary Infertility: A Personal Story of Loss and Grief

Ben Hughes
Patient Experience Journal, Vol.13(2), pp.48-51
06/08/2026

Abstract

Patient experience Men Communication Secondary infertility Personal narrative Support Education
An increasing number of people worldwide are experiencing fertility and this trend is reeected in the data from the United Kingdom. However, most research focuses on the experiences of women and so the male perspective is largely missing from the literature. This narrative is an account of my personal journey of secondary infertility. Presenting a male perspective of infertility provides a point of view which is rarely explored and is about a topic which feels largely a societal taboo. I chart how infertility has changed me, what it has meant to me through my years of trying to come to terms with it, and so also represents a search for meaning and personal identity in a fragmented world. My experiences indicate that men's responses to secondary infertility can be similar to those of women, with feelings of grief, loss, frustration, guilt, depression, and a loss of identity and role. Little support is ooered for couples and individuals experiencing secondary infertility and men are generally not thought to experience these emotions. As a result, this grief is felt to be largely disenfranchised.
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Published (Version of record) Open Access CC BY-NC-ND V4.0  — This license enables reusers to copy and distribute the material in any medium or format in unadapted form only, for noncommercial purposes only, and only if attribution is given to the creator.
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Published (Version of record) Open Access Open CC BY-NC-ND V4.0  — This license enables reusers to copy and distribute the material in any medium or format in unadapted form only, for noncommercial purposes only, and only if attribution is given to the creator.

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