Having had relatively minor fertility issues myself this isn't a subject I'm unfamiliar with. However, an incident a couple of years back still haunts me, and I really would love to know how I should have handled it. What should I have said, or not said?

My husband and I were at a friend's party. We met up with friends I hadn't seen in some years and we spent the better part of forty minutes chatting about the wonders and joys of our offspring with them. And then I casually started to ask these friends who have been married for several years and have no children: "And are you guys thinking that having children..?"

I got no further when the wife cut me off with a vehement: "Don't even go there! Just don't go there!" and she then walked off. My husband and I sat in stunned silence until I got my voice back. I apologised over and over to her husband who was standing stock still beside us, and awkwardly, the subject was changed. When she returned, we resumed the conversation as though nothing untoward had happened.

I ache for my friends who are trying to start or continue a family. I know the pain of miscarriage and the sorrow it brings. But I know only a little of the fertility quest. Try as I might I probably don't understand AT ALL what you are going through.

I still feel terrible about that night. These days I never ask people about their plans for a family unless they bring it up first. But I do wonder for my friends who are fertility challenged. What do you want me to say? Do you want to talk about your struggles? Do you wish those of us with children would just shut the hell up? Do you think I'm insensitive because I don't ask how things are going? Or do you just not want to talk about it? Or do you want to talk about it, but not with me (which is fine obviously!)

I think a dialogue about this subject is important because so many times I don't know what to say. So I say nothing. But I do care. Alot. There is too often a divide between the "haves" and the "have nots" and straddled somewhere on this delicate precipice are those with the "have a little but not all." That is those dealing with secondary infertility. And I just want to know, what would you like me to say?