Why My Kids Are 14 Years Apart…

Aug 17

Guest Blogger: Claudia Calderon

…And a few other questions NOT to ask women.

You're a senior in high school; you have great friends, a boyfriend, you're invincible. Nothing can go wrong right?

I went on a trip with my family to visit my parent's friends in DC, and I got so sick! I'm talking about runny nose, headache, couldn’t breathe….and then I was starting to feel so nauseous! What kind of bug did I get? And on vacation, out of all the times that it could have happened? I remember walking around DC, going into museums and doing the trolley tours….and just feeling so nauseous all day that I had to keep running into bathrooms to throw up (so gross I know, I hate using public bathrooms to begin with.) After I got home, a few days passed and this feeling wasn't going away….uh-oh! Could it be? No way! Yup sure enough, I took a test and lo and behold the two red lines stared back at me….PREGNANT! What am I going to do? Do I keep this baby? Do I get an abortion? Do I give the baby up for adoption? I'm only 17! How do I tell my parents? Do I tell my parents? My boyfriend? Well this is a story we'll get into another time.

Fast forward almost 17 years. Faith Victoria is now going into her senior year of high school. She is a beautiful, smart 16 year old who is learning to drive, has a boyfriend and a great group of friends who she hangs out with all the time. She's the best big sister, to her 3 brothers (2 from her dad and stepmom) and a sister (from her dad and stepmom as well.) 1 of those little boys, is my son, Logan Mathew, Faith's youngest brother. He'll be 2 at the end of August… that's right, my two "babies" are 14 years apart! How come I waited so long to have my second? It wasn't my choice believe me!

Matt (Faith's stepdad) and I got married on October of 2011, we had been dating since 2008. We had a small ceremony, just our family and a handful of our close friends. I had to plan my wedding in a month!! Why you ask? Matt had enlisted in the army that year, went through basic training, AIT, and airborne school, and was now stationed in North Carolina. Faithy & I stayed in CT- I didn't' want to take her away from family, and move every few years because of the army, and I didn't want to take her out of school. I wanted her to be in the same school district, with all of her friends. I didn't want her to have to make all new friends and go through such a big change. Matt and I missed each other so much- he would drive up from North Carolina at least once a month, and Faith and I would try to go down at least once a month. At the end of the day, it was the best decision for all of us. So, Matt was getting ready to deploy, hence the quick wedding. We'd been engaged for a while but wanted to get married before he deployed. Plus, it's so hard to plan anything when you're in the army because plans change all the time. My family got a save the date saying "August, September or October…." Really? Who does that??

One of my "fears" was getting pregnant, and having the baby and Matt be halfway around the world. I know some women that that's happened to, and they have my respect! They're so strong! I would have fallen apart! After he came home, we tried to get pregnant. We tried, and tried… Months went by, and nothing. Also, I should mention that I have PCOS, which makes it harder to get pregnant. But, how was it that when I was 17, and I wasn't "trying" to get pregnant and it happened so easily! Now I'm married, financially stable and I can't get pregnant! It didn’t seem fair. My primary physician Dr. Kurian (I swear she's the BEST doctor ever!) gave me the number to this fertility specialist. She said it was time to go there since I'd been trying for years at this point, and still couldn't get pregnant. Faithy had two brothers at this point, and as happy as I was to see her be such an amazing big sister, I wanted to give her a sibling too. I don't know why, but why is it that when you can't get pregnant, everyone around you seems to be?! Matt has a big family with 3 siblings, and lots of cousins who are like siblings to him. We're all very close- some of my best friends are his cousins. Well, they all seemed to be getting pregnant, having babies, and still nothing for Matt and I. At family gatherings, you'd always get the question, "When are you guys going to have a baby?" I swear I hate that question so much! We heard it all the time, not just from our families but from our friends as well. It was finally time to stop procrastinating and go see this fertility doctor. We made an appointment and of course we had a big snow storm that day. Nothing was going to keep us from going to our first appointment. They called us to make sure that we still wanted to come in that day or if we wanted to reschedule. Matt and I said, “We'll be there in a bit!” There was no way we were going to reschedule after trying to get pregnant for so many years. We instantly fell in love with Dr. Lavy (we call him our angel). He was so caring and straight forward. On one of our first visits we left with a "this isn't the most complicated case I've seen- its not an IF you can get pregnant, but a HOW can we get you pregnant." Those words were music to my ears, because at this point I was so sure I wasn't going to be able to have kids because of the PCOS as it can cause infertility. Matt always said that if I couldn't get pregnant at least I had given him an amazing step daughter, whom he's helped raise since she was 4…and who knows maybe down the road we'd be able to adopt.

The first step was to go to the hospital and have a HSG, short for hysterosalpinogram. Basically, they place a catheter inside your cervix and put a dye in so that it can trace the shape of your uterine cavity and fallopian tubes so that way they can see them through an Xray. Quick process that's supposed to take about 10 minutes right? Wrong! Not for this girl! After 45 minutes, 4 catheters and lots of quiet tears rolling down my face, they were finally able to put the dye in and get the x-ray! She told me I have a "kink" in my cervix and that's why it was so hard to get the catheter in. This was the first time that Matt would say the words that would become a pretty regular part of his vocabulary every time we'd go in for tests, ultrasounds, blood work, procedures, shots, DNCs, etc … "I wish I could take the pain away from you, we don't have to do this. If you want to stop at any time we stop." And every time I would smile at him and say "I love you and I want to do this." After many tests and ultrasounds, Dr. Lavy said that one of the reasons I couldn't get pregnant was because I wasn't ovulating, and also because I had a polyp on my uterus where the embryo would implant. He scheduled me for surgery to get the polyp out. We had a follow up appointment to see how everything went after surgery, and thought we were ready to finally start treatment! Wrong again! He said that my lining was so thick that we had to do a DNC. So, here we are scheduling yet another surgery. Honestly, the time after that is such a blur now, I was in and out of that office a few times a week.

FINALLY, we got the ok and I had to start taking shots everyday. My first shot would be in front of the Beacon Theater in NYC in the car before Faith and I went in to see the Backstreet Boys in concert. Matt would be the one who would give me my shots, and the days when he'd have to work in the evenings (the shots had to basically be at the same time everyday) I'd be on FaceTime with him and he'd be talking me through the process. I can't remember how many weeks I had to do those shots, but towards the end I'd be in Dr. Lavy's office daily getting blood tests (my arms were so bruised) and ultrasounds to see how the eggs were doing. They kept growing each time we'd go, and finally when we though it was time for the "trigger shot", it basically triggers ovulation and then you go the next day to do your IUI (artificial insemination), it turns out they weren’t ready yet. The eggs were growing, but they were growing slowly. Finally, we went in one day, and they told us that I was finally ready for the trigger shot! Our insurance thank goodness covered IUI, so they said we should do it that way we can have more chances to be able to get pregnant. Matt gave me the trigger shot, and the next day we were off to Dr. Lavy's office for the IUI. I was so nervous and scared, not because of me feeling any pain, but because I wanted to be pregnant so bad, that I REALLY wanted this to work. They said we needed to be back in two weeks a blood test to see if I was pregnant. This was in January, about a year since we'd started this process. We were going to Disney World for a long weekend, so I wanted to get my blood test the day before we left instead of when we came back. Here I am thinking I'm going to get the results right away…wishful thinking! That night we had a bad snowstorm and all of the flights out of NYC were canceled. Matt, Faith and I needed this small get away so bad. After everything we've been through. Somehow Matt managed to score a flight that left from Philadelphia to Orlando. That morning we rented a car, drove to Philadelphia and on the way there, a familiar number popped up on my caller ID on my cell. I picked it up with a knot in my throat, I didn't want to hear that the procedure didn't work and i found that I was bracing myself for those words. I was ready to put on a brave face for Matt and Faith. I was ready to tell them "It’s ok! Dr. Lavy said that it might not happen on the first try! We'll just try again."

The voice on the other end was Helen one of the nurses there. She had basically been through the whole crazy ride with us! She said "Hi Claudia this is Helen, I'm calling to let you know that I got your blood test back and…you're pregnant!" I immediately bursted into tears, hysterically crying. I was saying "Thank you so much! Thank you so much!" She responded "Aww you're going to make me cry! I'll see you next week for your ultrasound appointment!" I turned to Matt and said "it worked!" he started crying, and so did Faith. This was finally happening. We've waited so many years for this very moment!.

It wasn't a very easy pregnancy, I mean why would it be right? I had a few scares where I thought I was miscarrying. Thank goodness I didn't. I had gestational diabetes, and towards the end I had to go into the hospital twice a week for non-stress tests because they were afraid I was going to get preeclampsia. I went to one of these test on a Friday , my blood pressure was high so they took me to do an ultrasound. The doctor at the hospital said that I had to collect my urine for 24 hours, and she also decided to tell me how my son's cord was wrapped around his neck twice. Talk about blood pressure being high!

**Matt waiting patiently through a NST. He never missed an appt.**

On Saturday, I brought in those samples, and I had my bag ready in the car because she said if my blood pressure was still high they'd have to induce me. Talk about nerve wracking! Not only because I would have the baby that day, three weeks early, but because my mom wasn't here yet- she wasn't supposed to come until the beginning of September since my due date was September 15th. Matt's Aunt, who was going to stay in the waiting room with Faith, was in North Carolina, and where was Faith you might ask? On vacation with Mike and Lynds until Monday! Thank goodness I was able to go home that day, but I couldn't stop worrying about the cord being wrapped around Logan's neck.

Faith called me Saturday night and said that they were coming home on Sunday instead of Monday. Mike dropped her off Sunday at around 10pm, Matt was just getting home from work at around 11pm that night. We all went to bed. And at around 4am I started to go into labor! I couldn't believe it! He was finally going to come! We went to the hospital and Logan was born at 10:24 am, with his daddy and sister Faith in the room to watch him come into this world. My perfect family that I’ve dreamed of for so long. Now Logan is almost 2, and Matt and I have talked about having another baby. A lot of people have asked me if I have to go through the fertility doctor again, and my answer is "I don't' know, but at least I know if we go through it again, it might just work."

Guest Blogger- Claudia Calderon- My beautiful step-daughters beautiful mother. The lady that i’m indefinitely indebted to for sharing her beautiful little girl with me… and for being a great friend and co-parent. I’m still working on her partying skills… stay tuned.

Lyndsay Cafagno

Why My Kids Are 14 Years Apart…

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