#Schmidtpainscale

[myrtleinfertile-blog]

Infertility and Ectopic Pregnancy: Head-to-Head

There once was a very dedicated biologist who quite purposely allowed wasps and ants and hornets to sting the shit out of him. Only as a scientist could, he then painstakingly (ha!) quantified each and provided the various stings with a qualifying description. About a thousand stings later, and we now have Schmidt Sting Pain Index. On this index, Schmidt rated the sting of the Bullet Ant (Paraponera clavata) as a 4-plus and described the sting as "pure, intense, brilliant pain...like walking over flaming charcoal with a three-inch nail embedded in your heel." Also a 4 on the scale, the Tarantula Hawk (Pepsis spp) caused pain that was "Blinding, fierce [and] shockingly electric. A running hair dryer has been dropped into your bubble bath”. As Schmidt can attest, not all pain is created equal.

And as it goes with the pain inflicted by infertility and pregnancy loss. Both cruel and fierce, but different. And just as Schmidt’s pain scale had an ultimate “victor” (the Warrior Wasp, in case you were wondering), I believe Infertility nudges out Ectopic Pregnancy on my own personal pain scale.

To start, preceding my ectopic pregnancy was one absolutely blissful and glorious week where every day I witnessed two lines appear on my home pregnancy tests. In fact, I handed over a bag of seven positive pregnancy tests to my husband, who burst into relieved tears. All was right in the world. The depression of infertility instantly lifted. I felt whole and complete and like all the struggle had been absolutely worth it. When hope has slipped out of your life, its return is transcendent. 

Sure...then I endured crippling abdominal pain, an ambulance ride to the ER, weeks of intense monitoring and stress, ultimately two huge injections of chemotherapy drugs to “resolve” my pregnancy, yada yada yada...Cruel? Sure. But when I felt like I’d been submerged in a cold and crushing darkness for years, and was finally allowed to bring my face above the murky water and feel the radiant sunshine on my cheeks, the gift of hope that came with that ectopic pregnancy made the pain endurable.

Not to mention, the outpouring of love and support. Friends came out of woodwork to check in, my work was very accommodating, and the intensity of the crisis brought my husband and I closer together. Our pain was validated by society and it did not feel like we were enduring alone.

Strangely, on the day my HCG test revealed my pregnancy was “resolved” and I officially was no longer existing in the life-threatening limbo of potential rupture, that familiar darkness began to fill me up like smoke. Loved ones would soon be celebrating that I had survived this horrific ordeal, while I was left starring back into the darkness of infertility, alone. 

And that is where I stand now. Alone. Full of disenfranchised grief and sadness. Infertility has bestowed the gift of crippling depression and anxiety. 

There is so much that stands in the way of the support I need to have any semblance of a normal healthy life right now. A literal three month waiting list to see a therapist through my health network not the least of them all. A dash of mental illness, a sprinkle of reproductive “dysfunction”, and (God-forbid) a cup of negative sans-optimistic feelings and emotions, and you’ve got a recipe for a taboo, stigmatized issue. If you cast your line out hoping to snag some support, you may end up with a hook full of slimy well-meaning “advice”, or possibly even some carnivorous creature eager to latch down right on your butt. Plus, aren’t we supposed to keep all our pregnancy hope and dream cards close to our chest until week 13 of our pregnancy? I wouldn’t know about that since my mother-in-law began tracking my menstrual cycle and eventually my family needed to be made aware that I was receiving treatment for a life-threatening  pregnancy...but I digress. 

I think what tips the pain scales toward infertility is the fact that it is a chronic, ongoing condition. I found major reassurance amidst the traumatization of my ectopic pregnancy knowing that the whole thing would be over in the matter of a month or two. Sure, one way the pain could end is with blood spilling into my abdomen, bringing with it a chance of death. Still counts as one way it’d be over! [May I introduce you to the morbidly dark humor that serves as my confidant during these troubled times]. Infertility, however, may literally never be over. It may steal my ability to have children during my child-bearing years, then stick around as my ugly shadow until I am old and gray. I have a couple of family members that live with chronic medical disorders. I have observed the cruel empathy-zapping attitudes that are born naturally out of the uncertainty and endless nature of chronic illness, when your loved one can’t just “get over it”. It is as though our human psyche isn’t programmed to handle comforting a pain that has no end. We are hardwired to bring over the casserole after someone dies, to make time to visit after a major surgery or to check in to hear about the progress of recovery after a car accident. It’s not like you can send over get-well flowers every month, um...forever. And maybe with infertility, since our society (including healthcare, and employers, and media, and even politics) has labeled parenthood a “choice” versus a “need”, peeps quietly and unconsciously may be thinking infertility is my choice. Perhaps patience is made even more thin for that reason.

I wonder, too, if people underestimate the suffering infertility causes. A Harvard Medical School study claims infertility diagnosis invokes the same degree of anxiety and depression associated with a cancer diagnosis. Though I’ve heard people who love me say things like “making them is the funnest part of having kids!” and “sounds like it is time for you to drink some wine, relax, and stop trying because that is when it will happen”. Since my friend group could staff a football team with their progeny, they probably can’t really truly imagine it may not happen for us. How could something that was so fun and easy possibly evoke feelings of sorrow, hopelessness and helplessness? Like life has be stripped of its purpose?

Ectopic Pregnancy (eccysis): Pain rating 4. Burning, white-hot and wrenching. Sloshing battery acid around the inside of your lower abdomen. Someone pulling the plug out of the bathtub letting your dreams of the future slowly spin down the drain. 

Primary Infertility (infecunditatem): Pain rating 4+. Chronic suffering and worsening darkness. See DSM-5 for depression and anxiety. Slow erosion of relationships, mental health, physical health, finances and sense of purpose on this planet. You’ve invited the dementors from Harry Potter over for game night, but they have taken up permanent residency in your home. 

So yeah, head-to-head, Infertility takes the title in this twisted contest.