Memories That Last a Lifetime

I remember my husband’s first deployment to Iraq like it was yesterday. It was something that I had always feared, but never realized that it would be harder to say goodbye than it would be to leave. Or at least that is what it seemed like. It was a horrible feeling sending the man I love off to a war zone. I had no idea how to act or what to say. Several days after that miserable late night at green ramp, I found myself feeling very ill and ended up in the emergency room due to dehydration. Little did I know that our lives would change in a huge way. The doctor informed me that I was pregnant. Honestly, I do not remember much after that for the next 24 hours or so. It all became such a huge blur. My husband had just left for what we thought was a yearlong deployment and we certainly had not planned on starting a family quite yet. It took me almost a week to figure out a way to tell him. I didn’t want to just blurt it out over the phone and I certainly did not want to just write it in a letter or an email. We had set a skype date up and planned to meet each other on the computer and my plan was to take a home pregnancy test just before then so I would have something to show him. This is not how I had planned on telling my husband that we were expecting, but when it is the only choice you have you have to use the resources available. I remember telling him that I had something to tell him, but I must have had a fearful look on my face because he immediately asked what was wrong. I finally announced that he was going to be a daddy. I’m pretty sure that 15 seconds of silence was the longest pause on the face of the planet. I wasn’t sure whether to expect him to be happy, upset, sad or angry. But he just yelled out, “I’m going to be a daddy!” to everyone that was in the Internet cafe where he was talking to me. Everyone cheered and I heard congratulations come from quite a few guys in the background. I held up the pregnancy test to show him and had tears streaming down my face. I was so relieved that I finally had told him and that I did not have to keep it a secret anymore. I certainly didn’t want the news getting to him before I could! It was a moment that I will remember for the rest of my life and that changed our family in a major way. Looking back, I don’t think I would change a single thing about how it happened. Except maybe my husband would have been home to pamper me while I was pregnant, but that is for my own selfish reasons. There have been several other deployments since then and our family has grown by two. The entire experience of being a military wife has shaped me into a stronger and independent woman. However, once I added mommy to that title I learned new meanings to those words and how they related to me.

Childhood Memories

            As a little girl, I lived with my father who was gainfully employed as a truck driver.  Often times we had dinner at the local Elbys restaurant and we sat at the high top area where my dad would flirt with the waitresses. I hate to say it, but I am pretty sure that I was my dad’s chick magnet.  I never really had a female influence in my life to show me how to style my hair, how to dress or to explain to me the “changes” that girls go through. It certainly was not easy.  I was teased a lot in elementary school and was labeled as a tomboy by most of my classmates. My dad would attempt to buy me dolls or what he thought were girly things, but he never really did get it right. Up until the fourth grade my dad remained technically single until the day he met my stepmother. I remember that day quite vividly because I was at the hospital getting my tonsils removed and she had been my nurse. She was super nice to me and had even let me take my new stuffed animal with me back to the operating room, since it was the day after my birthday and I was determined not to leave any of my new toys behind. Shortly after I had recovered from my surgery I began to see more of the nice nurse that had taken care of me that day. She would come over to our house after work to fix us dinner and I remember after my bath I would beg her to brush my hair and braid it since my dad was so terrible at it. Not too long after that she officially became my stepmother on June 4, 1987. I remember it fondly because it was also my dad’s birthday. She had picked out this beautiful purple dress for me to wear and had a friend of hers curl my hair in little ringlets. It really became a defining moment for me as a little girl. I was so proud of how I looked and I could not wait to take a picture to school to show all the kids that had always made fun of the way I looked and dressed. I know that my dad tried so hard to raise me the way he thought he should and I will certainly never ever hold it against him. However, the best thing that ever came into our lives was a woman who knew how to be a lady.