A Story Nobody Prepares You For
When Lisa Richardson found herself pregnant at 17, the path forward felt impossibly hard. After carrying the pregnancy to term, she made the wrenching decision to place her baby for adoption — a choice she carried quietly into adulthood.
But amid the grief and the healing, one assumption remained steady: she could get pregnant. That part, at least, felt settled.
She was wrong.
The Cruel Irony of Secondary Infertility
By her 30s, Richardson was ready — emotionally, financially, relationally — to become a mother in the way she had always imagined. What followed instead was a years-long battle with infertility that blindsided her completely.
Her story, shared with CBC News ahead of Mother's Day, illustrates a cruel and under-discussed irony: the women who struggled most with an unwanted pregnancy in their youth often assume fertility is something they possess indefinitely. The science, unfortunately, doesn't work that way.
Fertility declines with age regardless of reproductive history. Prior pregnancies offer no guarantee of future ones. And for women who experienced teen pregnancy — a moment often framed entirely around prevention and consequence — the idea that they might one day desperately want to conceive and be unable to rarely enters the picture.
The Emotional Double Weight
What makes Richardson's account particularly striking is the layered grief involved. There is the ordinary heartbreak of infertility — the negative tests, the medical procedures, the hope that curdles into disappointment month after month. But beneath that sits something else: the memory of a pregnancy that happened when she wasn't ready, the child she chose not to raise, and the silent question of whether those two things are connected.
They almost certainly aren't, medically speaking. But grief doesn't follow medical logic.
For many women in similar situations, Mother's Day carries enormous complexity. It is a day that simultaneously honours the child they placed for adoption — a child who exists, who may be living a full life somewhere — and mourns the children they haven't been able to have. It is a day that celebrates motherhood while quietly ignoring how many different, painful shapes motherhood can take.
Why This Story Matters Nationally
Canada's conversation about reproductive health has grown in recent years, particularly around access to fertility treatments, the cost of IVF, and the emotional toll of pregnancy loss. But first-person accounts like Richardson's add necessary texture to that conversation.
They remind us that infertility doesn't arrive in a vacuum. It arrives with a full history — of past choices, past losses, past identities. And for women who navigated teen pregnancy, that history is especially layered.
Support organizations across Canada, including Fertility Matters Canada and regional hospital-based counselling programs, offer resources for those navigating infertility. But advocates note that more culturally sensitive support is needed for women whose reproductive histories are complicated — women for whom the standard infertility narrative doesn't quite fit.
Richardson's story is one of resilience and honesty. It's also a reminder that reproductive health, in all its complexity, deserves more than silence.
Source: CBC News — First Person series. Read the original story at CBC.ca.
