When I had been going through fertility treatments for a couple of years, somebody told me that "it's not like infertility is cancer. Nobody is going to die." I was flabbergasted by this comment. I am sure this person saw this comment as trying to reframe my situation so it would not seem as bad, but it just made me feel invalidated. Because I wasn't at risk of dying from infertility, it wasn't serious!?!!

No, my body was not at risk of dying, but there were definitely risks of "deaths" involved, such as the "death" of the dream of the child with hub's eyes and my nose. There was the death of my yearning to nurture a baby. Also, if I could not be a mother, I was not sure if I even wanted to continue living my life. (I was not suicidal, but I was definitely battling depression.)

I have actually read that, on a scale of stressors, the stress of battling infertility is just as powerful as the stress of battling cancer. Higher on the stress scale is the death of a child. Lower on the stress scale is moving or starting a new job. I cannot remember exactly where infertility fell on the list, but I remember that it happened to share the same stress level as battling cancer. Boy, does that drive home the level of stress involved.

Some people cannot find empathy unless they have personally experienced a particular situation or, for whatever reason, have a fear of experiencing that situation. I know many people who fear getting cancer; I know very few who fear facing infertility. Most people assume that they are fertile, so they have no reason to fear infertility, whereas most of us know several seemingly healthy people who have battled cancer. I guess people have more respect for those situations to which they can most relate.

Infertility is extremely stressful, and it is very painful emotionally. You do not have to risk death for a medical condition or disorder to be a big deal. Just talk to anyone struggling with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), a disorder that does not kill you, and ask about his level of stress. Also, just because another person has it "worse" does not make my situation any better.

Related Topics:

Challenges category

Photo credit: Lynda Bernhardt