We both know how lucky we have been to have hubby/daddy home
for the past four years with barely a TDY (essentially a business trip for the
non-military). How lucky that he has
gotten to see Curls (daughter number 1) grow up, watch her transitions, see her
firsts steps (which I somehow missed), hear her first words and get to play
hide-and-seek and tickle games with. We knew this day was coming…we just thought it
wouldn’t come for another year or so.
Yet here we are, prepping for life with a deployed spouse.
The terrible thing is he is leaving three weeks after baby number 2 is born. The blessing is he gets three whole weeks with baby number 2!! At my 38 week appointment yesterday not much had changed from the 37 week appointment. Ugh. At 37 weeks I was supposed to get my membranes stripped (earmuffs…or eyemuffs for those who do not like personal/graphic details of pregnant-lady doctor appointments)…but my cervix was hard and high…essentially nothing was going to happen anytime soon and the doctor couldn’t do anything to help me along (like strip my membranes). I have a friend who lives up the road; she is due about a full week ahead of me. At HER 37 week appointment SHE was 1cm dilated. Not that I’m jealous….or irritated….or frustrated, or anything. But I am. At yesterday’s appointment the most I had was my cervix 20% effaced…but the doctor was still unable to strip my membranes. So now I am scheduled for a C-section a week from today, because if this pregnancy goes anything like Curl’s pregnancy did, I will be a week late, get induced and end up with a C-section. Yay. So I figure instead of risking hubby only getting three or four days with #2, and have to recover from a C-section without him, let’s go ahead and get this done and over with. Not the ideal…not what I wanted…but probably the best choice for us right now.
The terrible thing is he is leaving three weeks after baby number 2 is born. The blessing is he gets three whole weeks with baby number 2!! At my 38 week appointment yesterday not much had changed from the 37 week appointment. Ugh. At 37 weeks I was supposed to get my membranes stripped (earmuffs…or eyemuffs for those who do not like personal/graphic details of pregnant-lady doctor appointments)…but my cervix was hard and high…essentially nothing was going to happen anytime soon and the doctor couldn’t do anything to help me along (like strip my membranes). I have a friend who lives up the road; she is due about a full week ahead of me. At HER 37 week appointment SHE was 1cm dilated. Not that I’m jealous….or irritated….or frustrated, or anything. But I am. At yesterday’s appointment the most I had was my cervix 20% effaced…but the doctor was still unable to strip my membranes. So now I am scheduled for a C-section a week from today, because if this pregnancy goes anything like Curl’s pregnancy did, I will be a week late, get induced and end up with a C-section. Yay. So I figure instead of risking hubby only getting three or four days with #2, and have to recover from a C-section without him, let’s go ahead and get this done and over with. Not the ideal…not what I wanted…but probably the best choice for us right now.
And now life with him gone is starting to sink in. Yesterday my husband made a joke and I
started crying. Not baby-hormone crying,
but pre-deployment crying (there is a difference). Even though his military gear and deployment
crap are all over the house (no clue where the in-laws are going to sleep right
now, because the guest room is a deployment staging area). Even though we found out about this a month
ago, it has not really hit home. I have been
so distracted by other things that other than the day I found out and bawled my
eyes out on floor of our bedroom, I have not cried or been sad about the fact
that the man I love is leaving for a year.
But I am starting to feel it now.
Next thing you know I am going to be on the laundry room floor crying
over a multicam uniform because it will hit me all at once that I am going to
be without him.
My biggest fear and what makes me the saddest is that I
don’t want to do this alone. Parenting
(hubby is so much better with that stuff), having a newborn and a three-year
old on my own, being responsible for their health and safety…I am terrified
that something is going to happen to one of them before he gets home and this
will be the last time he sees them…and it will be all my fault. There I said it. I’m scared I can’t keep them safe. I’m scared that I am not a good enough mom to
do this on my own. I know that I will
have lots of help. I am lucky that we
can afford to keep Curls in full-time daycare while he is gone, I am lucky that
my daycare provider is AWESOME and understanding, I am lucky that I have great
neighbors (many of whom are either current military or retired military) who
will mow my lawn or pick up something from the store for me, I am lucky that I
have a great MOPS group that will bolster my spirits and faith life, and I am
lucky that both our parents are retired and can and will help me out as much as
I need…even if it means they have to make a two day drive to do it. I am lucky.
But I am also scared.
As most parents know, 5:00 – 8:00pm tends to be the hardest and busiest
part of the day. It’s those three hours
that you have to cram in prepping dinner with a hungry toddler about to fall
apart, eat dinner with a newborn in your lap and a stubborn/hungry toddler
refusing to eat, clean up from dinner and
wash up children, and then somehow manage to convince the exhausted toddler
that she needs to sit down for stories and she must go to bed and STAY. I’m worried about losing my temper, I’m
worried about maintaining the energy to do it EVERY DAY with few breaks. I know that everyone has offered to help, but
I just can’t imagine calling up another mother and asking her to come over and
wash my child while I clean up from dinner, or to brush her teeth and hair
while I go to the bathroom during those “witching” hours. You know, all those nice things you can usually
count on a spouse for.
I know I am not the first person to be in the situation and
I will not be the last. And I know that I
am probably the worst military wife out there.
Even though I have eleven years of total military service and a
deployment of my own in my background, I somehow have never dealt well with
being the one left behind. I have good
friends of mine that I made when our husbands were in the same squadron with a
very high deployment tempo that are supremely better than me at dealing with
this. And they make the same comment
that I have made to myself. I, of all
people, knew what I was getting into when I married someone in the
military. That may be true, but someone
forgot to tell me heart. Plus, being in
the military, I had always thought that I would be the one leaving…not the one
left behind.
Though I don’t know how, I will make it through this. I may be spending a lot of money in
maintaining my sanity or plopping my child in front of the TV way more than I
want to, but we will make it. Plus, I
just remembered my neighbor across the street is an emergency room nurse…
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