Life just happened. My guy and I got engaged after 6 months, unknowingly got pregnant in 7, found out at month 8 while we were planning our wedding, and we got married in month 9 of our relationship. Crazy right? Totally. Do I regret any of it? Not a single thing.
Our beautiful, first-born son was born in October of 2009. He has been an angel, a devil, a thinker, a talker, and a champion, but most of all, he has always been my heart. My husband and I planned on expanding our family long ago–we wanted our children to be 2 1/2 to 3 years apart–but life just happened. Our little guy is no longer little, he is an active, vivacious 3 1/2 year old. If we were pregnant at this very moment, our first two children would be about 4 1/2 years apart.
It’s not what we wanted, but it is what it is. When we got pregnant, my husband and I were both 21. I had JUST graduated from college a few months earlier, and I hadn’t secured a job yet. My husband put off finishing his degree to work two jobs to support us. By the time our son arrived, money was very, very tight. Even the shifts that I was working at a local restaurant weren’t enough. When our son was 7 months old, we moved away to live with family in another state. That didn’t help us get our shit together either. Every time we got something paid off, some other bill reared its ugly head.
After 2 or 3 months at our new arrangement, my husband expressed interest in the Air Force. Although I had never heard him talk about it before, he said that it was a dream of his while he was still in high school. I was on board right away. The family that we were living with HEARTILY disapproved to say the least. We put it off to see if we could make things work.
A year later, we were still no closer to living on our own. Even though I obtained a second degree, I was still no closer to getting a 9 to 5, and we had even more college debt. My husband was thriving as a restaurant manager, but the late nights and long hours were turning me sour. We saved up our courage and decided to do what we didn’t have the internal fortitude to do the year before–move away and join the Air Force.
We moved into my mom’s spare bedroom 12 hours away because we couldn’t afford to live on our own. We waited for a year and a half for everything to go through, and in December of 2012, my husband left for basic. Those two months were quite possibly the most difficult of my life, but I couldn’t break down, because my little boy was looking to me for reassurance that everything was going to be ok. And it was.
Now, we are all back under the same roof, and the military life suits us quite well so far. We will take deployments as they come, one day at a time. So now, nothing is holding us back. It’s time to make a baby. This is my chronicle of a second time momma managing home, work, military life, and a toddler. Here we go.
Baby Take Two 