Barren

***From Caleb's perspective****

Dr. Moon walked into the medical examination room glaring at the file she held in her hands. A small Chinese woman who held so much power at this particular moment. She sat down in a chair across from Lila and me, pushed her glasses up her nose, and made direct eye contact with Lila.

"The problem is that you're not ovulating. If you don't ovulate then you can't get pregnant." She gaged our reactions then continued, "You are otherwise a young and healthy woman and I feel confident with the right treatment we can get you pregnant."

I squeezed Lila's hand for encouragement. We had been trying for seven months to start our family, literally started on our wedding night. I was real anxious for us to start that next phase together. If you could see the way she was with the nieces and nephews, I knew motherhood was something she was born to do. Everytime we came across a baby section in a store we just had to browse through and we have even discussed potential names. To say we had baby fever would be a gross understatement, it was more like we had the plague.

This news was devastating....

Dr. Moon continued, "Thankfully Caleb all of your tests came back fine, so we're only dealing with one infertility issue here. I would recommend contacting your insurance company to find out the extent of your infertility benefits in case we need to delve deeper than mere medications."

Infertility is officially the ugliest word I have ever heard. each time it was used I saw Lila squirm like someone had punched her in the stomach. We left the office hand in hand neither of us saying anything. About halfway through the car ride home Lila whispered, "I'm defective."

I pulled the car over. My hand graced the side of her face. "Don't ever talk the way about the woman I love."

She began to cry. "You give me everything and I can't give you this one thing, the one thing you want more than anything."

"I already have the one thing I want more than anything and that's you. We have options, we have time. I love you and nothing is ever going to change that."

A small smile crept on her face, "I love you too."


My heart was broken but I didn't want to let her know that. I was worried that we may not be able to have kids. The fact that I was worrying made me feel like a complete ass. This was happening to her body and I had no control over it. My biggest pride was that I had the skills to fix or build anything with my hands, yet this was beyond my expertise. I wanted to hold her so tightly in my arms, tell her I loved her, and promise everything would be alright. Would they be empty promises? A part of me wishes that I was the infertile one, put the burden on me.

A few hours later my sadness had turned to anger. There were families boasting about having their 20th baby and teens on MTV getting knocked up, yet two people in love and married couldn't make it happen. Why was this? How much I wished I could make passionate love to Lila and in that passion create something bigger than the two of us. What had she ever done to deserve this? Now she would have to go through god knows what treatments and tests with all kinds of side effects. It wasn't inpatience that got me, I could wait however long it took if I knew a baby would come from it all. It was the unknown, the chance that it may never happen for us no matter how hard we tried.

I didn't sleep that night, instead I watched her sleep. I ran my fingers through her soft curly hair. I kissed her eyelids. I breathed in her scent. At the end of the day I had her and that made me happier than anything. I only hoped if she could be happy just with me.