The Roller Coaster of Our Lives... January

Around the 5th of January I went with my mom and sister to our favorite little fabric shop in Teton Idaho, in the car ride over though I got a phone call from Andrew. This phone call will forever be a moment I remember as something that caused my heart to stop and drop at the same time. Andrew called saying his recruiter had called and there was a boy on the east coast who had dropped out of his leave date to be in intelligence (this was Andrews 1st choice area but also very high in demand, hence us having to wait so long for him to actually leave after swearing in). Because he did this it opened up a spot that his recruiter quickly grabbed up. But there was a problem... he would have to leave in exactly TWO WEEKS!!!! 

As you can imagine i went silent waiting for the part where he would say JUST KIDDING!! That part never came. For the rest of the day i was in a haze, we both were. We had so many things to do and to deal with the fact that this leave date would make it so that Andrew wouldn't be able to be there for our baby being born, and wouldn't even get to meet her till she was a month and a half. Because that wasn't bad enough he also wouldn't be able to even know i had the baby till he received his mail, because all of his recruiters said that the odds were slim that we would be able to get a hold of any one that could tell him, and he was definitely not going to be able to call. 

This was all going to take a lot of strength, that i was just hoping and praying that we had. We took it all one step at a time, moved our things into a storage unit, moved me into my parents house, sold our 2nd car, Andrew quit his job, we got rid of our apartment, and got ready to say our good byes. 

Because of all that he was going to miss out with with Addie being born we went up to the hospital one day for an ultrasound so Andrew could see the baby one last time. During that the nurse confirmed that it would be our little girl, and then found something worrisome. My placenta had started to calcify, which means that it was starting to show scars which meant that it wasn't going to be giving as much blood as it should and is the leading causes for miscarriages when you are far along. But of course the nurses didn't tell us this only said to talk to my doctor and tell him to look for it next time. Which was alarming but not as an immediate concern as the fact that my hubby was leaving in 2 days for 3 months. 

When the day finally came it was heart breaking, all morning we just sat there by each other not really wanting to say anything because that was to hard, and yet not wanting to do anything. When the time came i had to have my dad drive Andrew and me down to Idaho Falls to drop him off because i wasn't sure i had it in me to drive home, and they we right. After gallons of tears and hugs we said good bye and drove away, i am not sure i would have been able to just drive away from my husband like that if i didn't have my dad to do it for me. 

The rest of the day we texted back and forth, i was in a haze all day not believing it was real, but that night we said our real goodbyes over the phone and promised to turn off our phone till morning. The more we talked the crazier it seemed and the more we doubted our decision to go on this path as a family so we had to stop and remember this was what we were supposed to do. 

The next morning Andrew was scheduled to ship out at 7 so one last text was sent and he turned his phone over to his Sargent and went to get his last physical for protocol before getting on the plane. Everything went great till the doctor put his stethoscope on Andrew's heart and right then he gave off an irregular heart beat, which the Military takes very seriously. So he was told he couldn't ship out till a specialist gave the ok. So he got his phone back and gave me a call saying that he was ON HIS WAY BACK!! you can imagine, this also freeked me out, there are 7 steps of grief right, well i went through my own steps of shock. I waited for the "just kidding" again, but it never came. Then i went through a stage of anger that we would have to go through the good byes all over again.

 But then, about the time he finally got home from Boise, i realized all that this was going to mean, Andrew would be there for the baby being born, we no longer had an apartment and were living in a little bedroom at my parents, and Andrew didn't have a job. Pluses and minuses but at least i got to deal with all that while still having my husband there to help me through. Which was definitely a blessing!

So keep in mind, all this happened in two short weeks, we were all surprised i didn't have the baby during it all because my body was under so much stress. But we did survive all that, but wait! there is more! surprising that there could be right, but for us its starting to seem that there always will be!

The Roller Coaster of Our Lives... Part 1

 So to say that our lives got pretty crazy this last year would be an understatement. Last year in August Andrew decided that he would like to really follow his dream of becoming a Marine. We were also 2 months pregnant so you could say that i was a little less enthused to deal with all the training (almost 7 months worth with about 4 weeks leave through out) but, it was Andrew's DREAM so we made it work. He swore in in September, which was also the same time i started 12 credits, and 3 jobs. Keep in mind I was also now 4 months Prego. Yeah life got a little crazy, Andrew tried and tried to find a job but sense the marines would never give us a definite leave date and so nobody wanted to hire him. But the good thing was that being that busy made it so being prego went by super duper fast!

Leave dates had come and gone and come and gone with no avail. It was getting closer and closer to our due date and looking like it was going to happen either happen when the baby was going to be born or after, which as you can understand wasn't the greatest of options. But like before we kept on trucking, we both really felt like the marines was the path for our little family, and we were just going to be introduced into the life of a military family early on. 

When school and one of my jobs finally came to an end i was burnt out. I was gladly taking life easy, by then Andrew had gotten a job at target so everything was much better. Ambitious quilting loving me decided to make Addie's baby bedding on my own so i started focusing on it and taking life easy being i was now 7 months pregnant. We still weren't for sure that our little baby was a girl or not, our doctors reputation was not so great. So her bedding was made and going to be red and aqua and well if it turned out to be a boy, to bad. 

That was how we ended 2011, Andrew working at Target, Me helping babysit for a family and working at fongs and 7 months prego, and oh did i mention we had Andrew's Cousin living with us, yeah... . Up till then we thought just getting things ready and talking about the marines and a baby was tough, we had no clue what was in store for us up ahead.