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BR Timing Question - Prob Crazy!
Ok so DH leaves for basic in July. I anticipate us PCS-ing early December. So timeline for our future as it is now goes somethin like this:
July: DH leaves for BCT
August: LO and I move in with my parents (we're renting out our house)
Sept: DH goes to AIT
Dec: Dh graduates and we get orders to PCS
So pretty busy couple of months, throw in their us going to see him for family day and graduation.
OK so here's our crazy part. LO is 20 months old, and both DH and I are getting pretty ready to start trying for another one. If we got pregnant in April, that'd make us due in January after we just moved, hectic timing to have a baby. But there'd be a fairly decent chance of DH being around to see the baby for awhile before any chance of deployment (theoretically). So..... opinions on my procreation please. Is that timing just way too much going on all at once, I mean to find an OB and delivery place in your 8th or 9th month of pregnancy is kind of stressful! But we're both getting to the point where we really want to try, and the idea of DH being around for the birth and at least few months is something that we can't guarantee if we wait till later in his military career. So yes, opinions if you will.
Re: BR Timing Question - Prob Crazy!
So... Let's say he breaks a leg in basic and now that throws off your timeline by two months. Or, he gets washed out of his career field while at AIT. That puts you back a few more months. Or, there's not a spot yet in a class for him and there's a 8 week wait for a spot. Or, he has intensive on the job training after you all move and it will be rough with the studying he is doing for work and caring for a newborn.
Or if you do get pregnant ASAP but the baby comes two months early? I have a friend here who gave birth at 27 weeks while her husband was in basic. He got to see his child for the first time in a bassinet in a funeral home.
I know I'm being a debbie downer but my STBXH's tech school (AIT) was suppose to be 20 weeks. He got there January 30th and did not graduate tech school until August 5th. Then his on the job training was stressful and he got washed out of his career field six months after us getting to his first duty station.
Shiit happens.
Lemon, that's a bit harsh to put it in terms like that. And, I feel sorry for other people who have gone through a loss and will see you put it that way as well when they read this thread.
OP, anything could happen. Usually you just decide to accept it and go with the flow and see what happens.
I agree some of that was worded a little harsh..
And I totally understand that shiit happens, but it could go the other way too. We could wait to TTC and then he could get deployed quickly and miss out on a lot more. I'm just trying to weigh it out.
I've gone through this entire pregnancy by myself. Granted, it's twins and by virtue of having done fertility treatments, things are a little less stable than had we conceived the conventional way, but sitting in the emergency room alone, more than one time, thinking that the baseball sized *stuff* that had come out of me were my embryos, was stressful. It would have been stressful with my husband there too, but there's a lot to be said for having your #1 support person with you.
My personal opinion is that if you're young with no extenuating circumstances, you're better off waiting until you get settled into the lifestyle, but more importantly, if you have to ask a bunch of strangers, that's a big sign that you should wait. You're very obviously a Type A (no criticism from me, I am too) and really hard core into wanting to plan every aspect of your life, but my overall suggestion would be to slow your roll, let your husband get used to being a Soldier, then reevaluate TTC.
Type A, Me?? Noooooooo! Haha, yes very much and I have been trying (not very successfully) to curb my need to plan stuff. As for asking the strangers, I am because I don't know what to expect with a first PCS, if it was just DH, LO and I here at home then now would be a great time. But entering into a new life is the part that gives me hesitations of if it would just be too much. But it wouldn't be the first time I've over thought something so I was throwing it out to see if it would in fact be too much too handle (obviosuly that depends on many factors too).
I know people do what they have to do, but I'm not quite six months pregnant yet and there's no way in hell I could imagine sitting in a car or on an OCONUS flight, packing, unpacking, and dealing with all the stress that comes with a PCS. No way. The half hour drive to work every morning leaves me really uncomfortable.
What if your husband gets overseas orders and you're too pregnant to accompany him? By then, he'll be the new guy in his unit and his commander doesn't have to give him leave to come home to be with you when you give birth. Nothing is a guarantee.
The best bet would be to wait until you DO know what you're doing, how a PCS goes, the OPSTEMPO of the unit he gets assigned to, etc, before you decide. You're going to be learning a whole new language, figuring out how to navigate the military, learning a whole new base (possibly country). The advice I give to the newbies at every briefing is that being an E-2/E-3 SUCKS. Sure, being in the military is awesome many days, but there are growing pains, and it just.plain.sucks to be the man at the bottom of the totem pole. S H I T rolls downhill, and your husband is going to be at the bottom of that hill, catching flack from a lot of people. Most people go through a phase of hating it, questioning whether they made the right decision to enlist (I know I did!), wondering what they got themselves into, etc. Sometimes that phase doesn't hit until they've been in for two years already when they realize they're still at the bottom of the hill.
It's already a time of so much transition.
Do not and I repeat do not plan having a baby DH's schedule. We attempted this, thought it was all great, and then his deployment got pushed up and now he is going to miss the birth by days and the first 7 months of her life.
I thought that we were safe having a baby so early in DH's career. I was lucky and got KU on his 10 days of leave after bootcamp. I spent the whole first tri alone and had to move across the country by myself at 15 weeks. I thought it would be at least a year before he deployed so he would be around for the birth etc. It was making the whole "pregnant by myself thing" worth it. No such luck, he has only been in the fleet for 3 months and off he goes.
Decide to start trying when you and DH are ready and then just pray that the timing works out.
Ok, here comes my spiel about how it sucks to be pregnant when your husband is gone. J left when I was 6 weeks & really sick. I ended up in the hospital about the same time he got boots down in Afghan. I was throwing up at least 20 times a day & that's not an exaggeration. 2 weeks after J left I was down 23 pounds. After 3 trips to the ER they finally admitted me because they couldn't stop the vomiting. I was there for 4 days then sent home. Within 10 hours I was throwing up again. I waited 2 days before going back to the hospital. I was down 5 more pounds bringing me up to 28 pounds lost total. I was re-admitted had a PICC line inserted then ended up in the ICU. They discovered I had a lot of gallstones & my kidneys weren't functioning well. At this point my Mom flew out with the intention of driving me back to Missouri. After discharge we did just that. She packed up my house, my friends put it in storage & we left. I was too weak to stay awake for more than a couple of hours at a time & I was still throwing up regularly. I had to wait until the second trimester to have my gallbladder removed which happened at 17 weeks with four trips to the ER for fluids in the meantime.
After my gallbladder was removed I slowly got better & even started working towards the end. My sister thankfully drove with me when I moved back to California 7 months pregnant.
It was horrible. All I wanted was for my H to be by my side but that wasn't possible. While his command was pushing to send him home we both knew things would get better after my surgery so he stayed.
Not to mention how disconnected he felt not being able to see my belly grow in person. Sure I sent pictures & videos but it was really hard for him. He came home when I was 38 weeks. He is still bummed he never got to see an ultrasound performed.
All that to say if I were you I would wait until at least July or August to TTC.
ETA: I say that because it seems like you are set on TTC soon so I would wait until you can safely say he'll be in the fleet.
Wait. Expecting/welcoming a baby is its own brand of (wonderful) chaos, I wouldn't add it to all the other chaos currently going on in your life. Plus, I personally wouldn't want to move while pregnant (if I could help it) or switch docs late in my pregnancy and deliver with another doc.
We're in a similar situation (PCSing to a new unit) and decided to wait until we're settled (possibly even through his first deployment with his new unit) to talk about #3. It also might have had a tiny bit to do with how crazy it is having two mobile one year olds
GL in whatever you decide!
Wait. There are so many reasons why I tell you to wait. 1. I went into Basic in amazing shape... or so I thought. I ended with multiple fractions and stress fractions (7 total) in BOTH of my femurs do to "over use". I was sent home for 30 days of con leave and then had an additional 8 weeks in a physical therepy unit until I was sent back into training. Five months of training turned into 8 months. There were people there with me who had all sorts of freak accidents happen. One girl fell off Jacob's Ladder (think a ladder made of 2x10s and telephone poles you have to climb) and broke her pelvis. One guy cut the first joint of his pointer finger off trying to steak down a tent on FTX. Another guy was bit by a brown recluse and never told anyone. You never know what's going to happen.
Also, what happens if your H gets Italy or Germany for his first duty station? How are you going to work that? What if your docs tell you you can't travel over there yet he has no choice? Even if you can travel, do you really want to be trying to move your entire family to Europe while extremely pregnant?
Slow down and wait.
A million times the bolded. I can't imagine having to do the last 28 days of my life with DH out to sea. I would have lived and I would have figured out a way to hold it together but it would have been so much different.
That said, I've known people who moved within weeks of giving birth and not only were they not phased by it at all, in some cases they were happier because they liked the hospital and doctors here a whole lot better.
I know you're looking for other people's opinions but it really comes down to what you think you can handle. Also, who else will be around to support you. If you live far away from family, will they come to visit you and help take care of LO#1 while you're getting used to having LO#2 in the home?
As someone else mentioned, sometime the baby isn't born when you expect. It can be much earlier, or you might not even get pregnant right away and January becomes February or March.
One last thought, if you were given orders to move somewhere really far away you might end up not wanting to move when you're 36 weeks pregnant. You might not be able to fly or want to be in the middle of nowhere driving on a highway so it might have the effect of delaying you while your DH moves on to the new duty station.
I don't think Lemon said anything harsh, just trying to be truthful about the possibilities. For some things in life there just does not exist a "nice way to say it".
I've had a miscarriage. My sister lost her child at birth and attended the funeral and talked in depth to my sister about it. I'm pretty sure how I put it wasn't offensive. I stated situations I personally knew had happened. I'm sorry it offends some people. That was not my intent.
I would absolutely wait. There are sooo many variables between now and then that it's pretty much a given that your timeline is going to change at least once.
H and I decided to wait until after this deployment he's on now to try. It's the second one in a year and a half, and we decided to wait instead of getting pregnant between the two. This deployment he is on now was scheduled for about 5 months, so for half a second I considered getting pregnant right before he left. Thank God we rethought that because this deployment has been extended twice and he would have missed everything, including the birth.
Our TTC time keeps getting pushed back, but we'll know when the time is right. Basically, if you have to ask, the time is probably not right.
That baby fever will calm down when the excitement of Basic, AIT and moving to a new duty station/ finding a house/ PCSing, etc catches up with you. You will be happy you waited until you are more settled in this new life that is going to bring a thousand changes every day.
I think people who have suffered a loss have to remember (and I was taught this lesson on here a year or so ago) that just because we handle grief/loss one way doesn't mean other people handle it the same way. While I understand why you said what you did, it was a bit graphic, and could have been a hard thing for some people (maybe even a lurker) to read.
Definitely wait. You'll have enough on your plate without a baby on the way. Plus, you and your son will start to get a feel for what life-without-Dad is like and how you will handle it during those times. The next few months will be full of changes and adapting to those changes, I wouldn't dream of trying to get pregnant on top of that.
Also, the military will f*ck up so many of your plans in the future it's not even funny (and I hope that doesn't come off as a "waaah, I hate you military!" statement because it's definitely not). I mean, I've changed that damn Maui getaway ticker in my sig about 3 times now. So plan on not making plans...for anything...ever