Asters & Dandelions

When I had my son I was blessed enough to stay home with him for the first year of his life. I left pieces of myself behind that year. A piece there, somewhere deep within a mommy group, another somewhere in the makeup drawer I opened maybe five times that year. There was one left in the drawer of pre-mom clothes I couldn’t fit in anymore and another within my circle of childless friends who just didn’t understand when I didn’t visit home anymore or wouldn’t meet them for that dinner party or bar crawl. I didn’t need any of those pieces anyways. I gained so much more. Found a piece of myself the day I walked into the lactation consultant’s office puffy eyed from sobbing and lack of sleep and pumped EIGHTEEN OUNCES of milk out of my engorged breasts. Found another the day I publicly breastfed uncovered the first time on aisle six of the commissary. Found pieces of me as I bared witness to each of Riley’s accomplishments. I found far more within me than I gave up to stay home and raise my baby. I found another, equally powerful, piece of myself the day I was able to decide when I was ready to go back to work.

I went back to work about a month shy of Riley’s first birthday. I didn’t work much at first but was working Red Lobster during the day and a local brewery at night by the time we PCS’ed to Korea. After working two jobs and still managing home life exhausted but none the less fulfilled, I was excited to get back to the domestic bliss of staying home. Germain and I talked about how fast Riley was growing and how he grew more independent everyday as our confident, crazy, sometimes terrible, two year old. We decided as we conquered this next adventure, we were ready to conquer another big adventure: baby #2. Back story: I had Riley unmedicated but being a first time mom, I was too scared of all of the what ifs and decided to labor at home but deliver in a hospital. As we headed to Korea I had big dreams of an all natural home water birth with a Sanhujorisa (Korean midwife). I removed my IUD and began trying the first week of October. We arrived in Korea on Halloween and I was four weeks pregnant on Thanksgiving. I was so excited to fulfill all of my natural maternity dreams. One night as I lay binge watching Burn Notice (for the fourth time), I began to spot. My husband and I jumped out of bed, got Riley ready and rushed to Good Morning Hospital in Pyeongtaek. We were mostly quiet; both accepting what this most likely meant. We even briefly planned. We decided if this was it, maybe now, in a foreign country with uncertain healthcare, was not in fact our moment to grow our family. We both cried and held hands on that silent car ride with Riley sleeping in the backseat. An hour and a half I lay there, terrified and not understanding a word these Korean nurses spoke. One stood on each side of me and they spoke over me in Korean. I finally broke my scared silence when they began to giggle nervously because they didn’t know how to say what they needed to in English. How dare you have the audacity to laugh over this hospital bed when I may have lost my baby?! As I began to panic, lifting myself from that bed, they found a few broken words: “heartbeat good. heartbeat two”. “Twins?” I said so quietly; surely I had misunderstood. “YES! TWINS!” the nurse said, thankful for the clarity we had finally made between the language barrier. Within the next two weeks we would find out my twin pregnancy was a risky one. Full of complications and bed rest, I’d spend the rest of my pregnancy with that same fear of losing them as I felt that night watching Burn Notice. I said goodbye to all of my dreams of water births and home births and dream births and replaced them all with only one: a healthy birth. At 35 weeks, we met our beautiful, tiny (4.9 & 5lbs), perfect babies; not a single day in NICU. Germain stayed home for a month and then I was back on my own in my kingdom of dirty dishes, diaper changes, three year old play dates and learning time, nap times, and cooking dinner between feeding times. I was much more exhausted but equally grateful to be able to stay home with my children.

We got back to the states in October and settled into our normal life. Germain would go to work and the kids and I would run errands, I’d suffer through the play dates with moms I rarely enjoyed the company of, we’d clean house, play, cuddle, cook, explore. Then, after almost two years of stay at home mom bliss, I had begun my fitness journey and was feeling more empowered than ever and decided the time had come again and I was ready to return to work. Finding childcare for three is a much different animal but we made it work and I found a job close to home. I worked and took on more hours than I had ever before and Germain and I made it work. We were at a point where we were working opposite schedules and we’d squeeze in the time when we could but it wasn’t the life we wanted. I was at the peak of my fitness journey and with a push from my husband, I decided to make the biggest change of my life; join the army. I never thought I’d ever be able to leave my children but as we had grown, I had stood beside my husband and watched him grow from a standby father with Riley; always taking my lead or looking for my validation on how he would do things with him, to a confident, in charge father of three. He one hundred percent could provide and thrive as sole care taker for our family. We made plans of when I would leave for basic. Germain reenlisted with a school leave; he’d be able to stay home with the kids for 6 months. My basic training would be three months and AIT for a 15W was ’16 weeks’. He’d only have to juggle one month of work and kids alone. Then I’d be back home and we could do this together like we always have.

All of those plans seemed to be leading me into this decision. It would work out beautifully and we’d be whole again before the end of the year. Midway through basic we found out Germain would be deploying. We decided if we could get his deployment delayed one month, then we wouldn’t need to activate our family care plan and move the kids’ entire lives to the other side of the country with family they barely knew. My first week here at Fort Huachuca, I couldn’t start class because my security clearance wasn’t finalized. I was forced to wait here a month before I could even begin my training. And just like that: one by one, our plans blew away like loose papers in the wind. We began to make power of attorneys and prepare the kids belongings for the move. In September my husband came to see me but sadly my kids had already moved in with my father-in-law and couldn’t make the trip. I got to have some love and soak in all of my husband as I possibly could that weekend and then the hard part truly began. He left for his deployment the next day and my kids were on the other side of the country. I was left questioning everything: what have I done to my family? How could I be so selfish to put my children in this situation? It is my duty to my family and my husband to be able to support his mission and hold down our home when he needs me. Will my children even remember me when this is all over?

It’s fine I’d tell myself. I’ll be home before Christmas. I was hit with more obstacles of Tradoc. More holdovers. More heartbreaks. I wanted to walk away so badly. I cried every single day. I was failing my husband not being able to support him and give him the comfort of knowing I’m taking care of things during his deployment. I was failing my children; leaving them on the other side of the country with an iPhone and a couple thousand dollars a month for their care. I was failing myself, not in class and too injured to do my physical requirements. I wanted to quit the army every single day. It wasn’t worth it anymore. Give me my dead end job back. Give me no job back. But for the love of everything worth loving in this world, give me my children back. I was stuck at another moment, looking in the mirror and not loving the woman looking back. Feeling so selfish for the road I took to lead me to where I am. Feeling so defeated for the chain of events that led me to be lagging behind where I wanted to be in my military career thus far.

Days went on and I wouldn’t leave my room. I’d sit and cry. No tv, social media, or even music some days. Not even a light on in my tiny barracks room. Just crying. Somedays, in self loathing and depression, I wouldn’t even call my children. Selfishly unable to bare another moment of Riley crying and telling me he misses my cooking and wants to go back home to Washington. Selfishly avoiding the tears running down Maddy’s face when she’d tell me she had a hard day and knowing I’m the only one that understands how deeply she feels these million power struggles she fights through everyday (because same baby girl, same. you are my child). Selfishly avoiding Gabby’s smile; the purest thing you’ll ever see in your life because it would unfailingly bring tears to my eyes. I’d watch her eyes well up with mine and within moments we’d sit there with soft smiles, in the quiet, both with tears falling down our cheeks.

I started phase II of my training and really flying. It was so incredibly difficult and so incredibly fulfilling. It sparked that tiny blue flame left within me like the pilot light in an old gas fireplace. The distance never got any easier but my will to keep fighting got stronger. It only grew bigger once I was consistently flying. Surrounded by people equally as driven and fulfilled by our tiny little Shadow (my UAV, or if you’ll make me say it, drone I operate) and all the ways we could manipulate it and understand every detail of it. Before I knew it, my training was almost complete and it was Christmas time. This time was bittersweet. I lost a chunk of my heart when some of the people who lifted me out of my hole and shined through my dark times left Fort Huachuca and moved on. I was equal parts happy for them and heartbroken for myself; another reminder that this should be me. I should be headed home but I was far from finished here. I spent the fastest two weeks of my life with my babies. Every single day we’d visit family, stay in pjs, go on adventures. I fell in love once again with bath times and bed time stories. Playing on the floor and watching the same movies for the fourteenth time. It broke all of our hearts when I had to leave. I thought I’d come back and be reenergized and ready to see this through. I came back to empty holes in my heart from the people who had left me behind, a room that was very obviously not my home, and a quiet place, which after spending two weeks with my tiny circus I created, was equal part deafening and depressing. I sat there, suitcases untouched, and sobbed and sobbed and sobbed. I wanted to be with my children. Training be dammed, I didn’t want to leave them again.

I graduated in January and refocused on my fitness as I watched my class leave one by one as I struggled to get back to my preinjury strength and pass a PT test and get home. Everyday I didn’t want to run that extra mile or make it to the gym, I remembered I’m one PT test away from getting to tell Riley I was finally leaving. We were finally going home. I failed. I failed that test and I failed and I failed. One test, I was so motivated and crushing every event but yet again, I couldn’t bring my broken back to lift my body up that bar and failed the dreaded leg tuck a third time. I fell from that bar straight down into my hole of self depreciation and depression. I cried that entire run and when I say run, I mean the title of the event which in reality was a steady walk as I sobbed my way around that track eight times. And then it happened. March 11, I passed my PT test. I cried and I celebrated and I told Riley. I was finally finished. As I impatiently awaited my orders to leave, I kept hearing this word: coronavirus. Like a pot of boiling water, I watched this evolve from something harmless in a pot to something dangerous and painful, bubbling over and extinguishing flames more everyday. And then it happened. The DoD released a ‘stay in place’ memo for all US Army. And here I was making that call again. Disappointing Riley again. Telling him plans have changed; again. As I wait for the heat to lower and the pot to stop boiling over, I instead am baring witness to it continually heat up now throwing water recklessly in every direction. We are now on a post wide lockdown. Unable to even leave the confinement of Fort Huachuca, I sit in my room, awaiting the day I am able to leave. Maybe I’ll do so in silence this time; in fear of disappointing Riley again. In fear of this being the time that he won’t forgive me. He won’t understand that the Army works in its own time. How am I to tell my 6 year old baby to trust a system I’ve lost faith in more days than I’ve called him on the phone in the last six months?

And here I am. A stay in place soldier with a stay at home heart. There is no pain like the pain of a mother without her children. So here’s to Tradoc purgatory, and the coronavirus, and Fort Huachuca. Here’s to hoping I’m out of here before the month is over. Here’s to all the things that I self define with as being a mother that I see being stolen by forever having to choose between being a good wife, being a good mother, and being a good soldier and some days feeling like I’m failing at all of them.