Early motherhood: For teen mom, birth the first of many challenges

NEWPORT The 17-year-old sits on the couch in her parents' home, her psychology homework in front of her. She has come home straight from school. No basketball practice, no hanging out. Her eyes have the squinty, puffy look of exhaustion.

At her feet, in an infant seat, lies her 2-month-old daughter.

Paige Marie is what people would call a good baby. She doesn't cry much, and aside from the fact that it's close to midnight until her eyelids flutter, her mother, Carla Gedelian, can't complain.

Wisps of blonde hair barely cover Paige's head. Her eyes are big and blue. When she does start to fuss, her mother picks her up and, for the moment, all Paige's problems have been solved.

In Paige's bedroom, her crib sits against one wall. Her mother's twin bed is against the other. Most nights Carla allows her baby to sleep alone, but lately she's been bringing her to her own bed. Eventually you'll regret it, older, wiser mothers tell her. She knows they're right. But she likes to have her daughter close. It's someone to hold and love in the darkness.

Being teen parents isn't something Carla Gedelian and Derek Cline planned. They had been dating for about a year when "it" happened. They didn't plan to have sex. They were impulsive and, they thought, protected.

"It just kind of happened," Carla says. "I was surprised."

They used a condom that night, and the few other times they had sex. In the back of her mind, Carla was concerned. She thought about birth control. Thinking about it was all she did.

"It was embarrassing," Carla says. "It was the fact that honestly, (sex) just seemed like the wrong thing to be doing. I was raised in the Catholic Church and it seemed not right to do that. I felt guilty."

Soon she and Derek started fighting. Their relationship was unraveling. But this relationship was different. Its ties wouldn't break, they would bind.

A woman's body has its own clock, a monthly routine that soon becomes habit. When the cycle is interrupted, few don't notice it.

Carla noticed. Her period didn't come the day it was due. It didn't come that week. She told herself not to worry. She played basketball. Her girlfriends had told her that lots of times, girls in sports just stop menstruating.

A week went by, then two. Still, there was no reason to say anything. What she didn't account for was her mother.

Tammy Gedelian noticed something. Carla wasn't using as many maxi pads as usual. Carla was 16. She had a boyfriend. Tammy let her mind fall to her worst fear.

"Are you pregnant?" Tammy asked her daughter.

Carla denied it. She said her friend told her that girls in sports sometimes stop getting periods. Tammy left it alone. She believed her daughter.

A second month passed and still, Carla did not menstruate. Finally the isolation became too much and she told Derek. He bought a pregnancy test. It was positive. Carla couldn't believe it.

"I wasn't sick," Carla says. "I just didn't get my period. I was just, like, I'll keep waiting. It never showed up. I was in denial about the whole thing. I didn't want to talk about it."

The stress, combined with the fact that they were growing apart, took its toll. Carla and Derek broke up.

"I was scared," Derek admits. "I didn't know what to do. I wanted to get away from my problems, but not leave (Paige's) life."

Tammy watched as her daughter spent more time in her room. Every teenage girl gets upset when she breaks up with her boyfriend, Tammy figured.

But Carla's mood didn't lighten. Another month, and Tammy noticed she was putting on weight.

Again, Tammy imagined the worst. Carla wasn't menstruating. She was gaining weight. She was moody. Tammy told her husband, Steve, her fears. They stayed up all night, talking about what to do, what to say.

"You have to confront her," Steve said. That next morning, she did not mince words.

"You're going to the doctor," Tammy said. "You haven't gotten your period. You've gained weight."

"I'm not staying home from school," Carla countered.

Tammy left the room, frustration electrifying every nerve. She was determined to remain calm. After another brief talk with her husband, she returned.

"We'll go after school then," Tammy said.

"Okay," Carla said.

With that one word, Tammy knew. She called Heartbeat of Monroe, a counseling center for pregnant women. She could bring Carla in for a test.

The counselor revealed the results. It was positive. Carla burst into tears. Tammy didn't cry then but at home, with her husband, she wept.

"I was more upset that she had to struggle with it for so long without talking to anybody," Tammy says. "I was never really angry. My husband and I had our long talks in the evening. There was a lot of crying. I cried because it's not what I wanted for her. I wanted her to go to college, to have a career. She's had to grow up too quickly."

For Carla, it came as a relief. She was a typical teen who fought with her parents her grades, cleaning her room. If they got after her about that, what would they say when they found out she had gotten pregnant?

"I felt so much better to have it out in the open, to have someone else know about it," says Carla. "Before that, I was scared of how she would take it. She took it so much better than I thought she would."

At Heartbeat, Carla found out she was four months pregnant. The counselor placed in her hands a model of what her baby looked like.

"I finally at that point admitted it to myself," Carla says. "That's the point when it all became real."

Carla knew she couldn't have an abortion. Would she give her baby up for adoption? And what about Derek?

Derek called Carla the next day. Tammy answered.

"Carla is pregnant," Tammy said. "You have to tell your parents."

Derek agreed. He called back the next day. Again, Tammy answered. "Did you tell them?" she asked.

No, he said. I can't do it; it's too hard. Tammy offered to do it for him. Derek passed the phone to his father.

"I thought my dad would get upset, that he'd yell, but he took it fine," Derek says. "He asked me what the scenario was. He asked me what I wanted to do."

Two days later there was a meeting between families. Carla and her family made it clear that while Derek's opinion mattered, the decisions would be Carla's.

"In a way at first I wanted to not have it," Derek says. "We being 16, 17, I thought it would be hard for both of us. But then I realized that our parents would support us."

When Carla started feeling her baby move, and saw the ultrasound, her mind was made up. She knew she would be a mother to her child.

On Sept. 5, after 22 hours of labor, Carla gave birth to Paige. "At that time," Carla says, "I was really happy."

The last few months had been difficult. Her parents' insurance didn't cover the pregnancy, but with the help of the Monroe County Health Department, Carla received coverage from a state program called Healthy Kids. Her age and petite frame had doctors worried her baby would be small, but Paige weighed a healthy 7 pounds.

A month shy of her 17th birthday, Carla Gedelian became a mother. She quickly learned that the real challenges lay in front of her.

"I was overwhelmed," Carla says. "I feel that even now. I'm exhausted from the birth, from being up 22 hours, and she's crying and I'm thinking I can't do this."

She brought the baby home. All Carla wanted to do was sleep. Two weeks later, she had to return to Jefferson High School.Without her family, Carla knows it would be impossible for her finish school. "I don't want to lay everything on (my mother)," Carla says. "But I need help sometimes. I'm so exhausted at the end of the day and (Paige) is up till 12. Or I'll have homework. So far it's been I do my homework when I have the time."

Carla's parents say they will do what it takes to make sure she goes to college. Tammy watches Paige three days a week. Derek's mother, Kim Clear, watches her the other two. Derek got a job, and he helps buy things like diapers. Carla plans to go to Monroe County Community College.

"I would not recommend this to another 17-year-old," Carla says. "I'll never know what it's going to be, the rest of my young teenage years, like others will. I'll miss out on being independent. I'm going to have to live with my parents longer than I want to. I can't go to a faraway college. Partying — I can't be selfish now because I have to think about Paige. It's her needs in front of everyone else's."

Carla went to homecoming but came home at 10:30. She was too tired to party.

Derek went into shock and denial during Carla's pregnancy, but about a month before Paige was born he realized he wanted to be a part of what was happening. He was at the hospital when Paige was born.

"I got the easier end of it," Derek admits. "I don't have to be there every night, wake up with her, and still go to school. It's got to be a hard thing to do."

Derek hopes to go to the University of Toledo next year. He had imagined getting a golf scholarship, but that dream is gone now.

"I have a responsibility," Derek says. "I have to raise a child now at age 18. I get overwhelmed sometimes by the fact of everything that happened. People say it won't happen to me, but it did."

While both say they love Paige, they are frustrated. They used protection, and ended up proof that condoms are not 100 percent effective.

"In a way, I wish I had waited to have sex," Derek says. "(But with teens,) it's going to happen. Teens are going to do it. You're not going to get around that. There are kids that wait to have sex until they are married, but I'd say 80 to 90 percent won't."

Carla remembers when a nurse came in to talk about diseases and pregnancy. If she had met the nurse earlier, Carla says, she might have thought about having sex. By the time the nurse came, Carla already was pregnant.

Tammy never imagined her daughter was having sex. She can see now what she should have done.

"When she started getting serious with Derek I wish I would have talked to her about sex," Tammy says. "I just didn't think she was at the point."

The Gedelian house, which hasn't seen a baby for 12 years, is filled with toys. Grandpa comes home and collects Paige in his arms.

"I'm hoping parents see their kids as young adults," Tammy says. "If they make a mistake, and he or she becomes pregnant, don't just throw her out the door. Look at the lovely gift we have here."