The Second Time Around
What I've Seen When Families Come Back After a Transfer That Didn't Work
A lot of the families I work with who end up with a baby in their arms didn't get there on the first try. I don't say that to be discouraging. I say it because I think people picture this process as a straight line, and the truth is, for plenty of people it isn't, and they still get there. The second time around has a different feel to it, and I wanted to write a little about what that actually looks like, because I don't think it gets talked about enough.
When a first transfer doesn't work, there's usually a stretch of quiet. A few days where nobody really knows what to say. The intended parents are processing it, the surrogate is processing it, the clinic is reviewing the cycle. I try to give that space its own room. I don't push anyone to make decisions in the first week. We just let it sit. And then, almost always, somebody picks up the phone, usually one of the parents, and says, okay, what's next.
That moment, when they come back and ask what's next, is honestly one of the most quietly powerful parts of this work. Because they're not the same people they were before the first transfer. They've been through something. They're a little more grounded. The nervousness from the first time around is mostly gone, replaced by something steadier. They've already done the hardest part, which was starting.
There was a couple I worked with a few years back, lived on the East Coast. Lovely people. Their first transfer didn't take, and the wife told me later she cried for about two days and then felt strangely calm. When we talked about a second transfer, she said something I think about a lot. She said, the first time felt like a leap, the second time feels like a step. I liked that. Because that's true for almost everyone I've worked with who's gone through more than one transfer. The first one is a leap. The next one is just a step.
The first time felt like a leap, the second time feels like a step.
On the clinical side, the team looks at the cycle and sees what they want to adjust. Sometimes it's medication, sometimes it's timing, sometimes it's nothing at all and the same protocol just lands differently the second time. The surrogate, if it's the same one, usually feels even more invested. They want this for the family. I've watched surrogates send little notes to intended parents between transfers that nobody asked them to send, just because they care. That part of this work still gets to me after all these years.
The second transfer day itself feels different too. Quieter. Less ceremony. The parents have already learned how to manage the waiting. They know what the timeline looks like, they know what the appointments feel like, they know how to read the messages from the clinic without spiraling. They've built a sort of muscle for it. And when the call comes in with good news, which a lot of the time it does, the reaction is usually softer than people would expect. Not less happy. Just softer. Like a long exhale.
There were two dads I worked with who honestly weren't sure they had it in them to try again after the first transfer didn't work. We talked it through a few times over a few weeks. They eventually did, and it worked, and one of them texted me a photo from the delivery room with a caption that just said, here he is. That's it. No big speech. Just here he is. That photo is the kind of thing that stays with you.
Just here he is.
Across a lot of these stories, what I've noticed is that a second transfer doesn't feel like starting over. It feels like continuing. The team is the same, the relationships are the same, the path is the same, you've just got more information than you did before. And that information, even when it came from something disappointing, ends up being useful.
If you're sitting somewhere in the middle of this, between transfers or before one, the thing I'd want you to know is that the families who end up holding their baby are not the families who got lucky on day one. They're the families who kept going. That's almost always the common thread. Not luck, not perfect cycles, just steady forward motion with people they trusted around them.
The second time around is quieter, and in a strange way, it’s often where the real story starts. By the time you get to that point, you already know what you’re capable of. You’ve already done the hard part. The rest is just letting the process work, and letting the people around you do what they know how to do. And in my experience, that part tends to go pretty well.
If you're walking through this, you're not walking through it alone.
Parham