Gatorade for life...

Day 2406: All I am interested in is Gatorade. I'm not sure if it is from being sick, or this perfect little baby growing inside of me, but that is the only thing right now that is anything less that revolting! I guess that's normal, or so the nurse tells me. I try and force other things in, and thankfully nothing has come up yet! But I never thought this is how I'd feel. It's funny, that for my entire life, an obsession with snacking has shut down so quickly!

Yesterday, we got the official call. I am officially, documented by the doctors, PREGNANT! Who would have thought! I am still in a daze all the time about it! I can't believe this is real! I can not wait to meet our little Onigiri (loose translation: rice ball)! I have never felt so happy and scared at the same time! But slowly it is starting to sink in! Slowly I am starting to register more and more what is happening, and MY GOSH! There are so many things to do!

Baby books, and prenatal care appointments, things to buy, and things to know, people to tell and decisions, decisions, decisions! It's unreal! I feel like all I want to do is go to a baby store and soak in the amazingness (yes, I know this is not a REAL word) of it all! I want to touch everything and picture my little Onigiri in my arms, being held by Darling Dear, in a crib, or playing! I just want to picture everything! And now it's actually happening!

Finally...

Day 2404: I have spent the last three days recovering from what I assumed was the flu. After throwing up, diarrhea, headaches, and body-aches, I decided, on a whim to take a pregnancy test. I am usually pretty regular, nothing too out of the ordinary, and being a few days late, I figured it was just being sick that got me down! Lo and behold, my beautiful pink lines! I am super paranoid so I peed on FIVE just to be sure. Having just started fertility tests, I was finally having hope that this day was coming, but I never imagined it would be so soon!

So after dunking the first test, I waited a few seconds, not expecting anything to show up, like the many months we have struggled through so far. What I was not expecting was those two beautiful lines! After the first one, I sat huddled on the floor, sobbing with disbelief. I couldn't believe this is finally happening! We had been waiting so long! Trying so hard! I had shed so many sad tears over this and now, I could not stop the tears of relief. The tears of pure joy.

Darling Dear was out on a flight and though I wanted so badly to tell him in person, he was on a debt in San Diego and not scheduled to return for 10 more days, and no, I do not have that much self control. Not at all. I did have enough self control to not hound him, so he was suspicious.

See, many months ago, when we first started trying I bought him a little gift. Having gone to school at Michigan State University, he is a Spartan through and through. So I purchased a little pack of Spartan binkies, wrapped them in leftover ribbon from our wedding and set them aside for when this day finally came. And thus they have collected dust, for over a year, waiting with me.

And now, all I can say is thank goodness for Skype! At least I can open them for him while he watches patiently, unknowing on his side. I can't wait to see his reaction. To see his face when I tell him he is going to be a father. And even more, to tell him he is going to be there for the birth! He will get to meet our child, hold them and everything before he deploys again and that is all I could ask for.

So I sit here and wait patiently for his call. Wait for him to land from his flight and ring me up, unknowing that his whole world is about to change! And let me tell you, waiting is NOT my strong suit! But I will do it. I can make it! I made it this far, whats a few more hours, right?

And so it begins...

Day 2396: As I sat in the waiting room at the hospital, nervous and eager to be seen, I am surrounded by children everywhere I look. A crying two-year-old, a fussing four-year-old, a woman with infant twins that looks so exhausted, I think she might just fall asleep while she is waiting in these uncomfortable chairs. It takes all I can to not burst into tears from the jealousy and envy I feel building up inside of me.

I want, so badly, what they have.

And maybe someday I will get it. But right now, there are just tests and needles and doctors and referrals, and I know they just have to be able to help us, but the longer we wait, the harder it is. This heartbreak is defeating me one blow at a time and I fear that I will soon have no hope left. I fear that every day, I am waiting for something that might never happen. Waiting for something we might never get to have. And that hurts.

It hurts in the supermarket with the kids begging for cookies, or at the work party with the teens hugging their parents. It hurts at the park where every child wants to pet my dog, and at my friends house when I hold her beautiful baby. It hurts when I see that negative test and know that it's just another month to tack onto the end of the timeline of when we will finally get to hold that perfect little miracle in our hands. When we will finally get to have what we have been waiting for, for so long.

And I know it will be worth it. I know that every time I cried, every time I broke down, every time I felt like I couldn't go on will disappear when our time finally comes.

So much waiting...

Day 2370: Sometimes I feel like, as a navy wife, I spend the majority of my time waiting. Waiting for orders, waiting for Darling Dear to call, waiting for Darling Dear to return home, waiting to buy that oh so perfect house you have your eye on, waiting to celebrate special events, waiting to get stinkin knocked-up already, waiting for my life with him to start! Waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting... Ugg...

The waiting sucks, there is no denying it. Sometimes people will try and tell you to look at the silver lining, but sometimes, I just don't see it. Now I'm not saying it's not there, I'm just saying that sometimes you have to be able to find the silver lining yourself. No matter how many people tell me, "Oh, he will be home in two month! That's not so bad!" or "You can try and have a baby when he gets home!" it really doesn't make me feel any better. And honestly, if you haven't had to wait months and months at a time without seeing your significant other, don't tell me, "Two more months isn't that bad!" and can I get a OH NO YOU DIDN'T to the people who say, "Is he really coming home so soon? This deployment has just flown by!" If you are not immediately affected, you shouldn't comment on the speed of the last agonizing however-many-longers. And no, your neighbors' cousin's wife's brother being deployed, doesn't count.

Now don't get me wrong, I know people are just wanting to help. And I honestly think, that they think, they are. Usually, I just suck it up. Grin and bear it, because I know that the waiting is always hard. I know that sometimes, words can't help.

But sometimes they do. Sometimes all we need is someone to listen to the words we have instead, someone to cry to. Because waiting is hard, and yes, I know I chose this life. But just because I chose it, doesn't make it automatically easy.

 

I hate feeling roasted...

Day 2355:  When you live in the beautiful state of Washington, a rainy day or something in the overcast category is pretty much all you see come fall, and well into following calendar year. On the occasion that the sun decides to grace is with it's beautiful face during this period of darkness, we have learned to embrace and take advantage of the rare opportunity. Wait, what? It's sunny? Quick! Break out the shorts! No worries if it's 45 degrees! It's Seattle and that's sun!

I've lived in Florida so I am fimilar with what sun truly feels like. Hot and sticky and wait, it's Christmas? But lucky for me, we are stationed where I grew up, and when I step outside and feel the crisp, clean breeze, and smell the freshly cut green grass, I know this is what home feels like. 

Sure, I'm probably biased, after all I had never lived anywhere else for the larger part of my life. But when you can sit on a grassy hill, not overly roasted in the beautiful afternoon sunshine, gazing lazily at the vibrant forests of evergreens, overlaying the majestic mountain range, how could you not be in love with a place?

Darling Dear and I met in Washington and spent the first part of our relationship exploring all it had to offer. I had lived here for most of my childhood and Darling Dear had been brought by the Navy. Growing up, my family and I spent time camping, hiking, biking and whatnot, but doing those things as a couple are just different. I can't explain it. It's like experiencing them new all over again, and boy, the things Washington had to offer us. 

We were lucky that in our slew of duty stations, we were given the opportunity to come back, and timing has left us hoping we can explore Washington again as a family, rather than just a couple, but only time will tell. But for me, this will always be home, something that I will embrace, rain and all.

What are memories, really...

Day 2349: If I have learned one thing as a sailor's wife, it us the shocking fact that you will move, and you best learn to like it or at least make the best of it. With each place comes new adventure and being the girl that was going to move just down the street from my parents, it is always something new. 

Each new duty station come with the packing and unpacking and repacking and refusal to do anything related to packing. I'll go ahead and be honest, we have been at our current duty station for over a year, and I still haven't finished unpacking! Why, do you ask? Well that's a great question. The answer is because I have learned that I don't need all the things I have. Sure, the fancy extras and "stuff" as it were, used to be important to me at some point. I mean it surely must have been for me to willingly move it across the country more than once, but why is it important. Most of that stuff I haven't touched or even looked at in years!

But nonetheless, I have grown emotionally attached to my stuff. Each little thing was a reminder of where I have been and how far I have come in my life, be it the out dated textbooks (I can still get some $$ for those!!), or the little scrap of paper I wrote my baby sister's hypothetical names on when my brothers and I helped my parents pick (they went with my choice, but it's not like it was a competition). And some of these things are worth keeping. That scrap of paper still sticks out of the baby name book my darling dear and I keep handy for our random discussions about our eventual offspring. But I can't keep everything. I can't hold onto every little paper, every little gift I was ever given, every small thing that ment something at some point, because that's not what a real memory is.

A memory is the smell of my parents juke box in our play room growing up, or the way I remember my grandmother reading by the window when I got home from school. It's the sound of a crashing plastic ride-on car skidding through our driveway, or the time I hugged my grandpa goodbye knowing I wouldn't see him again. It's the holler of the angry neighbor as my roommate and I built furniture well into the night we moved into our first apartment. It's the laughter from day I met Darling Dear when he thought I was drunk but just realized I'm crazy, or sound of the tears coming from my mother as I moved across the country for the first time. It's the feeling I had when I stood in front of all the important people in my life and stammered to keep Darling Dear as my best friend forever. 

It's a feeling, or a smell, or a sound. An experience, not a thing. And though getting rid of the "stuff" is hard, I remind myself that I am making way for new memories and that I am not really letting go of the ones from my past.

Babies are following me everywhere...

Day 2336: People really aren't kidding when they say that there is a time in your life that you will become baby crazy. Let's be honest, I never truly expected the moment when our parents stopped discouraging "getting jiggy with it" and started encouraging it instead. But since we have always been open about the subject of having a baby, it has become a bit of a running joke for us now a days.

I have always been a bit on the baby crazy side. I knew I wanted to be a mother from the get-go. I have always loved babies and can never seem to get enough of them. Their precious little cheeks, fingers, and toes, and don't even get me started on their little blubbering sounds and baby socks! I nearly die every time I see one out of envy alone!

Darling Dear is a little bit more of a distance admirer. The idea of our own baby is all fine and great, but he isn't usually the type to offer up to holding someone else's spawn. A smile, maybe, but lets face it, who can look at a baby and not smile. But after over a year of trying to make our own little person, even he is going baby crazy! Enough to almost enjoy my endless expression of love for anything baby, smiling at everything related, and even holding the babies of our friend! Shocking!

Because of this, though, I find that the babies seem to be following me everywhere! Darling Dear was the one to broach the "are we ready" convo, so at least I never felt like I was making him take the next step before he was ready, but his show of enthusiasm has flipped another switch in me and I think I have become full on baby INSANE!

I'm hanging in there. Each month brings new challenges but at least we are enduring together. And when I think about one day, when I will get to hold that little bundle in my arms, none of the waiting, or baby crazy will matter anymore. But more than that, I can't wait to share that day and experience it with Darling Dear.