My daughter’s unborn sibling is in the freezer, to be made into a real human being at a later date, should we decide to do another round of IVF. The fertility clinic contacted me recently to remind me that it’s still there. As if I had forgotten.

We lost our very first child as I went into early labour at 12 weeks. What followed were 16 months of infertility compounded by grief, convincing me I was a failed mother.

Then the doctors told me I had diminished ovarian reserve at 29-years-old, and that with every month, I snowballed into barrenness. Our only option was to try IVF. We agreed to it on the spot, blindly, not understanding the process or the toll it would take. Research indicates that the stress of infertility is equal to that of cancer patients. Many couples endure infertility, miscarriages and cycles of reproductive treatments, often in frozen silence. That’s what hope does.

When the clinic told us I had eight viable eggs harvested, hope hung suspended. Then two days later, only four fertilized eggs had survived. One day later only two had divided enough. How could I have injected all those needles, swallowed all those pills, and spent all our savings for this?

But we only needed one shot, my husband reminded me. And it worked. The baby grew inside. Nine months later, she was with us. We didn’t push our luck thinking about her sibling.

Every ounce of my pregnancy and her birth was over-medicalized. I was induced at 40 weeks and it took me 73 hours to give birth to a healthy baby, after copious amounts of drugs, hyper contractions, two fetal distress incidents and an emergency c-section.

After the delivery I spent eight months in pain from gallstones caused by the IVF hormones. I thought the pain was part of postpartum recovery. Everything about conception, pregnancy, childbirth and postpartum included some level of pain. I believed that pain was part of the suffering needed to create a human.

In the end, over three years, I’d had five surgeries (two to remove babies, two to create babies, one for bloody gallstones,) been injected 93 times, popped 300 pills, had 20 ultrasounds, eight trips to the emergency room, and hundreds of doctor visits.

I counted the medical interventions, as if adding them up would equal a baby. Yet here was this beautiful child in my arms.

Many months postpartum were spent coping from shock and exhaustion from the birthing experience. At times I didn’t believe that she was mine, or from me, and I wasn’t sure who ‘me’ was anymore. I couldn’t make decisions or physically press baby snaps together because of postpartum carpal tunnel and a lack of sleep.

It is so perplexingly difficult to be a mother. It’s surprising given how much time I had spent wanting it, suffering for it. How can I ever sign myself up for baby number two knowing what I do now?

But now the embryo in the freezer is no longer just an embryo, it’s the sibling to my daughter. She has a personality and a future life that will extend beyond mine. What happens if I leave her sibling frozen, for eternity? Will my heart freeze over as well? Can I live with the loss of a never-fulfilled human life?

The c-section surgeon noted, as he peeled away layers of my belly to find my daughter, that my daughter had her eyes wide open. As if she was ready to come into the world.

It’s too soon for me to be making decisions about a second child. But I know that, the hope and loss I have endured will serve me well in my decision, no matter what I choose.