A Little History

I realize that most anyone who is reading this already knows most of this information, but for completeness' sake, I feel the need to write it.

M and I met our freshman year of college and began dating on New Year's Eve of 2005.  Both of us ended up transferring from College #1 and M went on to join the Navy in the spring of 2007.  He left for bootcamp the following September and by the time he finished in November, we knew we wanted to get married.  He proposed right after Christmas and we got married a year and a day later, after I graduated [from College #3].

Training for his job was long - it was made up of 3 schools which were supposed to take a total of 15 months.  He was put on hold between each school while they waited for the next class to begin.  He was in South Carolina for the first 11 months [3 months of school + 2 months of hold + 6 months of school], and then moved to upstate New York for the last leg of schooling [which was supposed to be 6 more months]. 

Our wedding was about a month after his school in New York started, so after the wedding, I moved up there with him.  We only expected to be there until April 2009, but the school was shut down for about 6 months and we ended up having our stay in New York lengthened extensively.  M ended up getting picked up for yet another stint of schooling after the third one, so by the time the shut down was over and he finished his fourth round of training, we had been in New York for over a year.  M seemed to think that he had a pretty good chance of being selected to stay in New York as an instructor at the school, and we were hoping that that would work out because in December we found out we were expecting.  But God and the Navy had other plans for us and M got orders to report to the USS Harry S. Truman in March, so off to Hampton Roads we went.  Sadly for both of us, the HST was scheduled to deploy shortly after M reported, and so he went out to sea at the end of May.

After much prayer and some other plans not working out, M and I decided it would be best if I moved back in with my parents until after SJ was born.  She was due August 15 and I am to be the maid of honor in my sister's wedding at the beginning of October, so we decided that it would be easiest if I moved to Pennsylvania at the beginning of June.  I'll head back to Hampton Roads after the wedding, but before the FRG meeting at the end of October. 

SJ was born two weeks ago and M won't get to meet her until he gets back sometime this winter.  We are so thankful for facebook and email so that he has been able to see photos of her, and we were fortunate enough to he was able to phone while I was in labor.  It still breaks my heart to know and see that he is missing these first few months of our baby's life, though.  I am so proud of the sacrifices he has made for our country and to provide for our family, but I'd love more than almost anything for him to be able to be here to experience all of this with me.  As hard as it is to do this without him, we both know that God is using this deployment to strengthen us both as individuals and as a couple.  We also know that when SJ grows up, she won't remember that daddy was gone for the first few months of her life.  If he's got to go, I'm glad it's now when she doesn't even know it.