We thought my husband would be deployed this year. But when we found out he wasn't leaving and had instead been accepted to a school, our plans for the future changed overnight.
All of a sudden, this became a "safe year," a year with no deployments, a year to start a family.
I wrote a post here at SpouseBUZZ back in February, asking readers how the pace of deployments has affected their family planning. I didn't find the response I was looking for. I wanted other readers to say that they too were nervous and apprehensive that they might not fit Baby in while Daddy was home. Instead I found that SpouseBUZZ readers had already learned a lesson that I hadn't yet grasped: There is no such thing as a "safe year" when it comes to babies.
Our timing would've been perfect. We had time to get pregnant, spend nine months getting ready for baby, and four months together as a new family before my husband's course ended and he became deployable again. We had successfully controlled our Army environment to ensure he'd get to participate in the miracle of bringing another human being to this world.
What we hadn't controlled is biology.
Every month that we didn't end up pregnant was killing us. Every negative pregnancy test was one less "safe" month. Our time was ticking away, and Baby was simply not understanding the gravity of today's deployment schedule! We were heartbroken.
If I had gotten pregnant right away and used our "safe year" to its full advantage, I would be going into labor right now. Instead we are just beginning the journey. We finally ended up pregnant in October, now with only four months until my husband becomes deployable again.
Not ideal. But that's life.
But having struggled to get pregnant, we now have a better perspective on the whole process. Now instead of worrying whether my husband will be home or not, we just worry and hope that the baby joins our family healthy and happy. That's all that really matters in the end, not whether my husband's in the room, not whether I can control everything.
Heh, now the baby controls everything!
