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.

Seeing a Base for the First Time

This last friday, I finally got enrolled in Tricare and got my military ID. It was a two week process of me harassing my husbands recruiter and it was a pain in the butt. Eventually, the recruiter called and we set a time to head up to the closest base, Fairchild Airforce Base.

Now, I have absolutly no background with the military so my first time on a base was, of course, a topic of interest for me. I didn't know if I should expect huge walls with armed men patroling the edges. I was also expecting the car to be searched; security was a big deal as far as I knew.

We drove up the "gate" and the recruiter flashed his military ID and the guy in camo just waved us on through. I am assuming its because we were in a military car, but I could be wrong. Maybe the guard just knew the recruiter.

Then we are on the base. And it looks like a town. A normal, busy town. There were sections of housing and then building with signs for various purposes. No scowling men with menacing guns. It felt like suburbia to be honest.

So we wound our way through the buildings to the one that was specifically for getting your military ID's. Walked in, put my name on a waiting list (like the DMV) and waited until we were taken to a cubicle. Very organized. The man behind the desk looked over my documents, took my picture, and handed me my ID right then and there. It wasn't a hassle at all.

Then we drove over to the base hospital. Not much of a hospital in my opinion, but I doubt they are doiong much brain surgery there. We were sent to an office specifically for Tricare where a very nice man got to work right away on enrolling me.

Overall, a very hassle free and pleasant experience. The hardest part was probably waiting in line for the ID, but even that wasn't so bad since there was a TV playing the news.

The base, overall, was very simple. Sprawling and busy. Not very well organized in my opinion, but I am OCD and lack of symmetry bothers me. The houses didn't look very nice, but the recruiter says thats just Fairchild AFB. He said that Pendleton has the nicest base housing out of everywhere that he has been.

I bet the waiting list for base housing is enormous at Pendleton. Its a shame you can't get on the housing lists until your husband/wife is stationed there.

So, if you are wondering what a base is like, its pretty normal. At least as far as I saw. The only difference between a town and a base is the workers are wearing camo uniforms instead of business suits. And the giant fence surrounding the base.

Birth Class Drama

Last night was my second birth class at my local hospital. I am not a huge fan of the teacher; she is all over the place and can't seem to stay on track. Drives me crazy!

Since Danny is gone to San Diego, and might very well miss the delivery, my mother has been coming with me to the classes. Its nice of her to go, but she isn't very helpful. Not on purpose, but she and I dont really get along. Her personality grates on mine and she despises everything that I do in my life. Were both pretty judgemental. But thats the oldest mother/daughters story in history.

Anyway, the class started and the teacher immedietly said "So husbands, did your wife do her exercises this last week."

It felt like a giant slap in the face. It hurt so bad that I teared up. But I bucked up and made myself smile hard. The teacher asked more questions for about ten minutes then we moved on to watching a couple of birth videos. *spoiler: its gross.*

Both videos were of happy young couples getting through the delivery together with the husband offering massages, water, etc. It made me pretty sad. These women get their husbands and I am going to be stuck with my mother who has no idea how to support me. In the delivery room, she is probably going to be lecturing me and saying that this was my fault for not being on birth control.

 (Yeah, thats her favorite thing to say since I got pregnant. Mom, why would you bother with birth control if the doctor told you that you were very unlikely to get pregnant? My mother has been very unsupportive. At this point, I think I want to be in the delivery room alone.)

Finally we got the end of the class, and I was on the edge, but still keeping it together. That was when the teacher started talking about the patterned breathing. For some reason, THAT set me off. I started crying and said "Mom, we have to go." Of all the things that could have made me cry and miss my husband, its the breathing. Explain that one to me...

So we get up and leave in silence. It was pretty awful. I was crying the whole way home.

That didn't stop my mom from lecturing me about how my negative feelings are going to impact the baby, which I know is true. Its not like I have a solution though. I can't force myself to stop being sad. She, like so many people, just don't get it. The longest she has ever been seperated from her husband is about three days. She expects me to just get over it.

I usually am pretty in control of my feelings. I miss my husband all of th time, but I am still functioning. I think I am entitled to some rough patches though. For Gods Sake, I am 30 weeks pregnant. Its a tough situation. Get off my back for crying once in a while.

Ugh, I wish I had another option besides my mom. But if I choose someone besides her to be my "birthing coach" she will never forgive me and spend the rest of her life guilt tripping me about it. I hope my son doesn't dislike me this much.

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.

Marine Corp News

Another gift from God; Danny's ship date for Basic has been moved up from May 9th to April 7th.

That means that Danny will be here for the birth (estimated to be July 19). Otherwise, he wouldnt have been here until about two weeks after the baby was born.

The day after we went to the ER, Danny went into the recruiter to tell them what was going on. They immedietly got to work changing his ship date and even trying to get him two extra weeks of Recruiters Assistance, so he could hang around in case I am overdue.

Turns out they couldn't get the RA, but he would have gotten 10 days of Paternity Leave, as long as he was out of basic.

So he is going to be home for the birth! BUT...that means that I will be traveling from WA to CA in my ninth month of pregnancy; I have a feeling that will suck. I am not willing, however, to miss seeing him graduate into a Marine.

I will have more updates soon. The first OB appt is on April 2nd where we will get more info about baby!

Hilary signing off!

Huge news!

I have excellent news and I cant wait to share. However, before I spill the beans, I need to explain my story so that everyone can understand just how big of a miracle it is.

I am 21 years old and I haven't had a period in a year. I was told when I was about 16 that I had a large cyst on my left ovary. For the last six-ish years, I have been living under the impression that the chances of me having a child without going through invitro or something were very slim. So when I got married about a year and a half ago, I didnt think for a second that I needed to be using birth control or condoms. I mean, why spend money when the chances were nearly astronomical?

So like I said, its been since April 2011 that I have not had a period. No spotting, nothing.

Not really all that strange when you have a cyst. Those things mess with horomones like crazy. A year was longer than usual, but a skipped period or four was nothing to worry about. So I have spent the last year going about my business, taking the occasional pregnancy test when I thought I had a symptom that worried me (unexplained throwing up, etc).

Four days ago, I began to have very severe shooting pains in my abdomen. I thought it was just the cyst bursting, except that usually feels more like pressure instead of shooting. So after two days of pain, I said to my husband "Okay fine, lets go to the ER. What if its something worse?"

We got there and waited for THREE hours in those God awful chairs until finally they called me back. They took blood, had me pee in a cup, and dress in that awful gown that shows your rear. After that the doctor came in and asked what was going on. I told him about the pain and the lack of periods. He told me to wait on the bloodwork and left.

Long story short, he came back in and told me that I was testing positive for pregnant.

...

"WHAT?! Thats impossible! I haven't had a period in almost a year!" Thats about what I said(loudly) along with the usual sayings associated with shock. My husband is standing to my right, gaping like a fish while my mother is to my left looking like someone just told her that she was the heir to a large fortune.

Then I started freaking out because WebMD (day before) had said that my pain was one of two things:
A) A bursting cyst
B) An Ectopic pregnancy.
I proceeded to tell the doctor what WebMD had said and he chuckled saying that I had no idea how many people came in every day because of that website. I wasn't laughing.

So I am now sobbing, my mom is sobbing, and my husband is tearing up. We are all on the edge.

Then a lady came into the room and said she was taking me downstairs for an ultrasound so we could see what was going on.

Down we went and they Ultrasound tech took her wand and squirted that cold gel on my stomach and started poking me.

At first we didnt see anything. Just the shifting grays. Until she says "Oh. Yup, there is a baby in there! And he is rather big!"

Praise the Lord, it was okay. He/she was perfect and awake and moving around. I just about died in that hospital bed from happiness.

Eventually I found out that I was about 23 weeks along and was going to be having a baby boy on July 19, which I laughed at because that is one week before my sisters wedding.

So there is my huge news. Almost half way in, I found out I was having a baby!

I will be back in a couple of days with more news. My family is still in shock, as am I. I have mostly been going from worrying to being excited the last day and a half, so I will have more news ASAP.

Pray for me! And him. We like the name Aiden.