Allow Me To Introduce Myself

"Got any kids?" It took a long time before I was able to let this question roll off my back, though I still cringe every time I hear it. Now I try to simply plaster a smile on my face and reply with "No, not yet", all the while trying not to roll my eyes or let out an exasperated sigh. I have the feeling it's the same for most people in my position. As long as that is as far as the question goes it is innocent enough. However, when you get the people that press further and want to know what you are waiting for it gets a little trickier. At that point you get to decide whether or not to lie, give a half truth or go into the full blown story as to why everyone but you seems to be popping out babies. I usually opt for the blunt "I can't have kids" response. It seems to do the job in keeping more unwanted questions from being asked and I'm just left with the pitying sideways glances and an "I'm so sorry". 

My name is Callie and I am 26 years young. I married the love of my life, Torrey (24), on May 02, 2009. I am an animal fanatic and usually have more than I can count. The ones that never change are my two boxers (Torren and Sydney), my calico cat (Brownie) and my Quarter Horse (Calisto). I live in a small coal mining town in Southern West Virginia, however my husband was recently laid off from the mines and went back to a job in Pennsylvania on a drilling rig. My time is halved between my camper in PA and my home in WV. I have an amazing family and the best friends, but they don't always understand what it is like to be in my shoes and can often make me feel worse than I already do (my husband included), even though I know they don't mean to. This first entry will be the start to a long journey. I don't know how long it will take to catch up to present day, but I guess we'll see.

In case you haven't figured it out yet, I have infertility. Unexplained infertility to be exact, for the most part anyway. In August of 2008 my husband and I were busy planning our wedding and we decided to go ahead and start trying for a family of our own. I had expected there would be some difficulty given that I would need time for the birth control pills to leave my system and I had had irregular periods before. Not to mention endometriosis runs in the family and, with my extremely painful cramps, it was a good bet I had it too. I had also had a scare with HPV and high risk pre-cancerous cells a few years before. 

Once I went off the pills we started trying with all the vigor of most soon to be newlyweds, but as the months passed and nothing happened I began to wonder. When I say "nothing happened", for the most part I really mean "nothing happened". I would go months with no period at all, although for some odd reason my debilitating cramps never came back once the pills were gone. I charted religiously and bought a fertility monitor. Finally, a month after the wedding (June 2009), and ten months since we started trying, I noticed that my boobs were extremely painful and I hadn't had my period (again). I decided to go ahead and take a pregnancy test and was awestruck as it showed TWO pink lines. I made a doctor's appointment, bought all the books, picked names, started looking at things we wanted to buy, and it was all for nothing. I went into the doctor's appointment at nine weeks. They told me everything was perfectly fine, except I had a tilted uterus and they couldn't hear the heartbeat on the doppler. According to them that was completely normal, even though I only weighed 108 and everything I read said that we should have been able to hear it. I went home and went about my life as if nothing was wrong, even though I felt it. I don't know how or why, but I knew something wasn't right. Mother's intuition maybe? 

My next appointment I was between twelve and thirteen weeks. Once again there was no pitter patter of a heartbeat on the doppler, except for my racing one, and I still looked like I did before I got pregnant. The resident that was trying to find the heartbeat worked for about ten minutes before she finally went and got the doctor. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that isn't a good sign. The doctor searched for about five minutes and sent me next door to have an ultrasound done, the paper he gave me to take them said "threatened abortion". I'll never forget seeing those awful words glaring back at me. 

When I finally got into a room I undressed, laid down on the table, put my feet in the stirrups and took a deep breath. Once the tech had the image on the screen she just sat there for what seemed like an eternity, tapping buttons and rolling the little ball on the control panel before she too went and got her supervising doctor. Then he said it. "This fetus isn't viable." Talk about bedside manner. He then went on to tell me he was sorry and printed out an ultrasound picture before he walked out of the room, but there was one other very important piece of information he gave me. My baby was only measuring at nine weeks. My baby was already dead at that first doctor appointment (I was closer to ten weeks at that appointment) and I carried it for another month because the first doctor didn't send me for an ultrasound. I was cold and numb, physically and emotionally. I got dressed and walked back to the truck with Torrey. They scheduled me for a D&C and I went across the street to the hospital. Family was called and given the news and a few people came to the hospital with us. 

While waiting for anesthesia, I had several nurses and the doctor herself come tell me their miscarriage stories. Even though I am very grateful for them sharing their stories now, at that particular time it did nothing to help me or ease my pain. It just made me cry that much more. I was told not to worry, that just because it happened this time doesn't mean it will ever happen again and that I would be more fertile afterwards. Boy would I blow both of those theories out of the water. Once I was home I was also confided in by a few family members and several friends that had miscarriages I had never known about. Though it was very enlightening and encouraging to know how often it actually happened and that they went on to have healthy babies, I still felt as though I was all alone in this experience (and still do).

Mostly I was just devastated. That was my child. Anyone that has a child, think what it would be like to lose that child and then add onto that never being able to hold it. That's what it's like. It may not be a baby to some, but to me it was every bit a baby as one out of the womb. On the ultrasound it looked just like a baby, just smaller. As far as I am concerned, I am a mother. My babies are a little different because they are angel babies. There was another emotion hiding just below my heartache too. I was mad, I was straight up pissed off. The only thing I could keep thinking was that it wasn't fair, why didn't the first doctor catch it and why all these other people can get pregnant and I can't. People that don't want kids get pregnant, twelve year old girls get pregnant, crack heads, alcoholics and every type of person in between can get pregnant. Why can't I?