The Most Painful Experience Of My Life

I got my period the day after I turned 12 (young, I know). It feels so right that the first time I experienced that pain was while serving the Lord on the altar. I felt faint as my very first cramps took over, and I was stubborn and too embarrassed to leave. My mom had to pull me off the altar, and then she laid me on the ground outside while I broke out in a vasovagal response. The parish priest ran out of his house with toast and water.

That pain would accompany for the next twenty years, and it became so pivotal to my prayer life. It was actually hard for me to accept the removal of my Stage Four endometriosis last summer at the age of 32, because some of my most intense prayer experiences came in the midst of those early morning bathroom floor sessions with God.

My fertility journey was so wrapped up in my spiritual journey from literally day one.

I was reminded of this two days ago when I went in for an endometrial biopsy. I had researched it online and everything I saw claimed that I would just experience “mild to moderate cramping,” but I couldn’t get over the photos—it looked like anything BUT that. The images looked downright painful, but everything I read said the contrary. I had mentally prepared for just a bad pap smear.

Minutes before the procedure, my doctor (whom I like, trust, and really respect) grimaced and told me that it would indeed be “pretty painful. Some women have told me it’s on par with labor contractions and extreme menstrual cramping.”

And then, those dreaded words: “You’re going to feel some pressure.”

What happened next was truly the most painful experience of my life. That familiar vasovagal response erupted: cold sweat, a fight for consciousness, and sharp tingling in my feet and hands until I lost all feeling and movement in my fingers. It felt like someone was twirling a medical parasite inside of me, and I was awake to feel it all. I quickly found myself groaning and breathing like I was in labor.

“IloveyoujesusIloveyouJesusIloveyouJesus,” went off like a siren in my head. I kept praying for the dozens of intentions I brought into this procedure for women struggling with their fertility and motherhood. I thanked God that he protected my baby nephew during a nasty fall. I thought about my mom’s bone marrow biopsy. I felt united to the Cross.

The procedure itself lasted a total of around 10 minutes, and it was performed three times. When it was over, the pain immediately stopped. When I got into my car, I actually broke down sobbing because I wasn’t sure what the hell just happened. How was that legal? Why was there NOTHING online to prepare me for that kind of pain? And more so—I think I just went through an intense spiritual episode in this fight against the womb.

I’m not saying it’s the most painful thing in the world (my gosh, I can only imagine what giving birth will be like!), nor that all women experience it to such an intensity, but I do want to say this: it was my first time truly feeling like the medical field was against me. For years cramps and pms symptoms have been dismissed by doctors claiming that it’s all “normal.” The medical world hadn’t even studied a woman’s menstrual cycle until around the 1970s. And the groundbreaking NapRo research is only a mere thirty years old.

I get all that, but this time it just felt really personal. What I can’t get over is how after digging and digging, I was finally able to unearth HUNDREDS of women who were also shocked by how painful an endometrial biopsy is. I felt less alone and validated. “Mild and moderate cramping” my ASS (excuse the language!). Take a look at the screenshots below:

My heart has also been heavy lately because my new medication regimen has been a tough pill to swallow—literally. My stomach is having a hard time dealing with it. But more so, my heart has just been so weary at the new embryo study. My eye doctor of all people was the one who told me about it. (Because of course I needed an eye exam before being prescribed a new medication for fertility—this journey is insane, friends). If you haven’t heard about this new study, it’s pretty groundbreaking.

For the first time ever, we have video of an embryo during implantation. (I pray to that little life that was sacrificed for the sake of this science experiment, in a way asking if I may spiritually adopt her). Poor implantation is one of the leading causes of miscarriages, accounting for up to 60% of them, so I pray this study will advance the reproductive field all the more.

The discovery is incredible: unlike mice whose implantation is merely the new embryo attaching itself to their uterine wall, sticker like, a human embryo attaches to her mother’s uterine wall with an INSANE amount of force—this explains why women experience implantation cramping and even spotting. This little poppy-sized seed can cause a mother to bow over and go, “Uhm, ow. What was that?”

Because what was just discovered is that this new little life is—from the VERY, VERY beginning—FIGHTING to burrow itself into the mother’s uterine wall as deeply as it can, with a shocking amount of energy and force.

I’m rattled by this. From the very beginning, that baby is desperately trying to live. It’s clinging and clawing for his mother.

It’s a fight from the very, very beginning.

My prayers as always are with those who are fighting in this war on the womb, whether that’s through offering your blood, your children, or boldly sharing the Gospel of Life. Please keep me and Peter in your prayers as we continue to discern the Lord’s will! May God bless you!