The new Arrival

Well, this wont be a long post but I wanted to share the news: The baby boy is here! After 18 hours of labor and 1.5 hours of pushing, little Grayson is here and is already spoiled completely rotten. This kid has my entire family wrapped around his little finger. Everyone says he looks like me, but all I can see are his dads features; little folde ears, expressive eyebrows, etc.

Poor little guy though; has jaundice and an infection, so they are keeping him in the hospital for 7 days to administer antibiotics. We are on day three right now, so only 4 more to go. They discharged me, but are letting me stay in an empty room so that I can feed and take care of Grayson. But if the maternity ward starts to fill up and needs the room, I get booted out, so hopefully the prego women in this town can wait a few days before going into labor. I can't leave my baby.

Funny fact though: Grayson sounded like a little duck when he was first born. So now he is my little gray duck and I have never been so in love.

As far as the husband goes: he is due home tonight for 10 days only. He DOES get paternity leave, but it is getting counted at the same time as his bootcamp leave. It doesn't seem fair to me, but who am I gonna go argue with? Danny said on the phone today that his plan to to come home and talk to his recruiter about getting some RA. More updates to come.

Phone Call

I got a phonecall yesterday from San Diego. My husband told me that he hadn't gotten mail in over a week so the DI allowed him to call home to check on me. It is good to know that the DI's are aware that Danny has a wife and child on the way; it gives me hope that maybe they will let him call me when I go into labor. I have only 21 days until my expected due date while husbands graduation is 29 days away. Everyone cross your fingers that baby is as stubborn as his dad and comes 8 or 9 days late.

The End of Phase One

The husband is now officially no longer in the first phase of bootcamp. He has started phase II and is at Camp Pendleton for rifle training. Sounds like fun!

If he hadn't been dropped for pneumonia, he would actually be a month from coming home at this point. He was originally supposed to graduate on July 6th, but has been bumped back to July 27th.

So, I want to remind anyone who has a recruit that you should look at my link to what OPSEC is and remember to not post specific dates of troop movement. Yes, that includes the dates on which your recruit went to or returned from Camp Pendleton. Learn the OPSEC guidlines now, so you don't get chewed out later on when your recruit is a marine and he is leaving for or returning from a deployment. Facebook and Twitter is the enemy of OPSEC.

Update on mon amour

I got a phonecall today at about 2:00 pm from my husband. There is good news and bad news.

The good news is that he is being moved from PCP to Kilo Company tomorrow to resume training.

The bad news is that he won't graduate until July 27th. One week after my due date...bummer. I was really hoping that Danny would be back in time to see our baby boy be born, but chances are that he will only get to see pictures. I wish he was going to be here. I am really going to need some help when the baby comes. It would be great if it could be babys dad. -sad-

But at least he is back on track for graduation! He is back in training which means he is healthy, strong and ready to push through.

What I Have Learned in the Last Three Weeks

1.      I am not in control. No matter how much I want to be, or think I should be, The Marine Corp is now a part of my life and marriage. Anything having to do with my husband has to do with them, so I had better just get used to it. He is theirs just as much, if not more, than he is mine.

2.      The Marine Corp has a lot of terminology that is way above my head. They have a name for items that don’t really need a new name, and it is frustrating to hear some strange designation instead of a proper name. My husband called the bathroom “the head” which threw me for a loop. Why has the military decided to rename everything?

3.      I am stronger than I thought, but weaker at the same time. I now know I am capable of taking care of myself if my husband is ever gone for good. But I have also realized that while I may be strong enough to physically care for myself, I am not very emotionally independent. I depend on my husband to listen to me, to comfort me, even to remind me when I am over reacting. My emotions have been all over the place for the last three weeks, and it isn’t getting any better.

4.      Nothing anyone says is very comforting. No matter how many times my mother or father reassure me, I still feel alone, scared, and worried. It’s nice to have family around, and their presence is at least distracting, but the hugs don’t even take the edge off the loneliness. They don’t need to know that though.

5.      Anything to distract myself is worth it. Moping all day isn’t good for me and it definitely isn’t helping my recruit. I know he can feel my sadness in my letters. He is my husband! He knows me better than I know myself so I am pretty sure he can pick up little hints of sadness, regardless of how hard I try to hide it. So for his sake, I have to stay upbeat. This means making sure I am not dwelling on the separation in order to make boot camp easier on him.

6.       I am so lucky to be my recruit’s wife. He is going through exhaustion and pain right now to provide a future for his family. He loves me and our anxiously awaited son so much that he is doing something that most people can’t even fathom. I certainly can’t!

MRP vs. Light Duty

I spoke to the husband very briefly today and he is being released back to the Recruiting Depot. When I spoke to him, he was already dressed in his cammies and had just been delivered his "chow." I guess chow is Marine for food.

So we spoke only briefly because he said he had to eat before he was discharged. So I told him I loved him, etc. Normal mushy stuff.

But later, I got an email from my husbands aunt, who is a chaplain down in San Diego area. She has the strings to pull that she was allowed to go into his hospital room to visit him. So she went and visited him and has reported back to me that he is being released back, on light duty. We had previously thought he was going to be sent into the Medical Rehabilitation Platoon, which he still might be, but all we know for sure at this point is that he is definetly getting a week of not having to do PT. So at least he will have an opportunity to get better before going back to regular training.

So what I cant seem to find on any internet forum is the difference between MRP and Light Duty? How will his graduation date be affected?

***UPDATE***

I just got a call, with very bad reception, from my husband telling me that he has been dropped into MRP. However, he must have been on a time limit because he didnt tell me when he was going to be moved back into a regular company. Then the call dropped.

Yeah, it dropped before he could relay any real information.

So you know what I did? I called back. And I got an answer. And this person said they were my husband. But It did NOT sound like him, and I know his voice. But when I asked "my husband" what had happened, I got a very garbled response ending with, "I will call you tomorrow."

I dont like this. I feel like someone was posing as him, because when I said "I love you" this strange voice hesitated.  My mother-in-law says its just because PDA is not allowed, but I hardly thing a hearty "I love you" is PDA...Maybe I just havent adjusted yet. In my defense, I have only gotten one letter, so any contact with him is like a blessing from God.

Pneumonia

So I got a call from The San Diego Naval Hospital today. A lady with a heavy spanish accent informed me that my husband has been admitted and that I need to call them back. Or rather, she tried. I was making the yardsale routes with my family and missed the call. I didnt get the voicemail until an hour later.

I panicked. I thought he must be dying. Why else would he be in a hospital? So I tried to call the missed phone number, only to have it make the strangest clicking/beeping sound no matter how many times I hung up and redialed. I then began an incredibly panicked search on the internet for a working number to the hospital. I eventually found one and got connected to a person. Only to be transfered to another location, then put on hold while my husbands nurse was found. Now keep in mind that I STILL had no idea what was going on. The nurse was SO helpful (can you sense my sarcasm?). She gave me the phone number to my husbands room. I then proceeded to call the private number.

Ring...Ring...
Ring...Ring...
Ring...Ring...
Ring...Ring...

Nothing. You can guess what I did next . I called the nurse back and demanded they go to his room to find out why he wasn't answering. The phone wasn't freaking PLUGGED IN! The most basic part of a working telephone, and it wasn't connected.

Finally, I got in touch with my husband. Who has pneumonia. Pretty badly.

But God was it good to hear his voice. I could barely stop crying to ask him about his condition. He says he is okay, but his cough says otherwise. He could barely talk, but he talked to me for a few minutes, doing his best to comfort me, even though he is the sick one. He was very interested in how the baby is doing.

Eventually he had to get off the phone because the doctor came in to do some tests. I called him back about an hour later, but he was only able to talk for about 10 minutes before he told me he needed to go. No explanation, but I assume he was exhausted and needed to sleep.

I am such a mess right now. How am I going to survive being cut off from him again once he is out of the hospital?  It is taking every once of my willpower to not drive to the airport right now and jump on a plane. For the last three years, I have been taking care of him and it is agony to be 1500 miles away and not able to hold him while he coughs. To ease his pain.

Plus, if he is sick for long enough, he could be "recycled" meaning that he would have to start bootcamp all over again. I am praying thats not the case.