Chapter Seventeen: Miracles Do Happen

I had done a little research on apartments during the little time of preparation we had so I had a list of a couple places I wanted to check out when we got into town.  We spent the first night in a hotel and it was during that night of intimacy with my husband that I realized it had been six weeks since my last menstruation.  I was worried.  Although I was by no means regular, I was scared this was another flare up of the PCOS and I feared I would have to get back on medication to make sure I didn’t go another several months without menstruating.  I knew I would have to see a doctor again.  I hated the prospect of this, seeing as this was our first day in town and already I knew something was different with my body and I would have to go to a doctor and hear the same disappointments over again.  Every doctor always insisted on a pregnancy test first and I had come to dread and hate those tests that only mocked my infertility.  I decided I would get a test and do it at home so at least I wouldn’t have any false hope in the doctor’s office.  Before hand I had always spent the price to get the high tech digital readers, but there seemed no point in wasting money.  A friend told me I could purchase a pregnancy test at the dollar store so Josh and I planned on stopping by a Dollar Tree before we headed to our first viewing of an apartment.  

The store was right around the corner from the apartment I was most excited about.  As we were checking out we were asking questions about the neighborhood.  Things looked good and Josh and I both felt happy with the prospect of living in Clarksville, Tennessee.  After we viewed the apartment we knew it was where we wanted to live.  After signing a lease we only had to spend one more night in a hotel and were able to move in as soon as the next day.  Even though we could move in instantly, it would still be another five days before our belonging arrived from Colorado.  Since we had gotten a two bedroom apartment we decided to make the second bedroom an entertainment room/guest room so we went out and purchased a futon for the new room as well as a place to sleep until our furniture arrived.  After the chaos calmed down from the day I noticed the pregnancy test sitting on the bathroom sink.  I had forgotten we had purchased it and debated on when I should take it.  I knew for the most accurate results you were supposed to test in the morning, but since I already knew what the results would be there was no reason I shouldn’t get it over with, even though it was five in the evening.  I read over the directions for the new test and waited for the results.  When the appropriate time had passed I was having a hard time reading what I was seeing as it didn’t automatically tell me not pregnant like the automated tests had.  There was a really light second pink line, which made it look like I was pregnant and I knew that couldn’t be right.  I called Josh into the bathroom to have him tell me what it looked like.  We probably looked like a couple of idiots staring down at the pee stick for a good five minutes trying to determine what it was telling us, but after our joint effort Josh agreed that it looked like it was saying I was pregnant.  Neither Josh nor I believed this and decided it would be best to go and buy one of the expensive tests just to make sure so we were not getting any false hopes that always broke us up inside.

We went to Wal-Mart right away and bough the tests I typically used.  As soon as we got home Josh kept coaxing me into going and testing, but I knew for the test to be accurate I needed to drink more water first and to be honest, I was in no hurry to read that the results of the first test had indeed been wrong.  After Josh and I had unpacked a little more and watched a movie I decided there was no point in putting off the inevitable.  I told Josh I was testing and walked into the bathroom and shut the door.  I wish I could say I was hopeful, but to be honest, hope was dead.  We had now been trying for three years to conceive and used every medication available and all had failed us.  I had been told that I could not get pregnant, so why hope for something I had finally come to accept as impossible?  The two minutes passed fairly quickly and I glanced at the test. 

I came out of the bathroom with tears streaming down my checks, where Josh was waiting for me.  I could see the sadness and heaviness in his eyes as he ran to me saying it was okay, we would always keep trying.  We would be parents.  I chocked on my sobs, unable to talk, all the while shoving the test in his face.  These weren’t tears of sorrow; we had finally been blessed with a miracle.  I was pregnant!  According to my last cycle I was six weeks pregnant.

It took a lot of examining the test before Josh or I could come to believe this wasn’t just a dream.  Finally after three years, I had my first positive pregnancy test.  We began looking up doctors immediately, knowing I would need a specialist due to my back and the PCOS.  I set up an appointment for when I was ten weeks along and just hoped that I wouldn’t miscarry before then.  Having gone through the difficulty we did in just getting pregnant I feared it was just all too good to be true and kept waiting to find myself bleeding on morning knowing we lost the gift we were given.  I wanted so badly to shout from the rooftops that I finally had a little baby growing in my belly, but I feared I would not be able to keep the sweet miracle, so Josh and I agreed we would wait as long as we could before we started telling family and friends.  Life just took a sudden turn and Josh and I could not be more excited about it.

It was so exciting to get our furniture when it did arrive as we had lived without a lot of our items since we left our house in Fort Collins before we moved to Pennsylvania.  It was like Christmas opening each box, discovering items we had long forgotten about.  I also became quickly aware of how much stuff we had amassed in our house.  Going from a nice sized house to a two bedroom apartment was a drastic change and we had to end up donating close to half of our belonging to make things fit.  Unpacking was fun as I got to set up our own household for the first time in over a year and I was so excited to have my husband here living with me again. 

Josh reported to work soon after our move to Clarksville and I filled up the days unpacking and organizing our new home. After the first day of work Josh came home with the news I was dreading.  The rumors had been right, Josh was not only deploying soon, but within a matter of a few short months; just enough time for him to get the gear he needed.  I knew deployment was something I would have to deal with the timing of it all seemed so unfair.  Finally, after all these years we were blessed with a pregnancy and Josh would miss most of my pregnancy and the first six months of this child’s life.  I knew after all the work I had done on myself I could handle doing it all alone, but I didn’t feel it was fair to me, Josh or the child.  None of this mattered though, the reality was this: I would get to live with my husband for two months before he would have to leave for an entire year, I would have to go through a pregnancy, possibly a birth, and the first six months of our child’s life without him and I would have to do it all in a new place I didn’t know.

I had the option to move home with my parents but seeing as we had just gone through the process to get our belongings and an apartment it seemed silly to have to pack everything back up and move back home again.  This was supposed to be our new start and whether Josh was physically here or not, that what I planned on doing.  I decided to stay in Clarksville during the year Josh would be in Afghanistan.  The two months before Josh’s deployment was once again a whirlwind of things that needed to be gotten done.  Between shopping for the items Josh would need for deployment and the baby items I would need while he was gone, it felt as if we were at the store every night.  We were blessed to have money in savings (which we thought would be going towards an adoption) so that we could purchase the big items together.  Since Josh would be leaving before we found out the gender, we decided to go ahead and purchase everything together but we would just pick things with neutral gender themes which we both preferred anyway.  Josh had always been a Winnie the Pooh fan as a child and suggested we made that the theme for the baby’s room.  I agreed, and we were both pleasantly surprised to find how many Pooh themed items there were.  It was pure bliss for Josh and me to pick out items piece by piece for our bundle we were expecting.  I took pleasure in the fuss Josh made over me, offering to run to the store for whatever whim or craving I might be having.  Although the joy of what we were expecting was elating, we still feared the worst.  Even after my positive pregnancy test, I still felt the need to test again just to make sure nothing had changed. 

Josh came with me to my ten week appointment and we saw the peanut sized baby growing within me.  As soon as we heard the heartbeat we both broke down in tears.  Josh held my hand as we both wept with joy as we viewed the child we were finally having.  Although I still felt like this was all too good to be true, the reality started to hit me.  I felt like the child was a girl, while Josh felt like it was a boy.  We picked out names for either gender and got to work setting up the items he or she would need.  Josh put together the crib and changing table and although it was too soon to put on the Pooh bedding and decorations, we planed and purchased it all together. 

Josh and I made the most of the two months we had together as we dated and prepared for our year apart.  I expressed my fear that something would happen to him or that he would come back different, but Josh always brushed way such ideas promising nothing would change him and he would come home to me and our baby no matter what.  I knew these were promises he really didn’t get to decide to make, but his reassurance was enough that I was able to be as strong as I could as we faced what a deployment actually meant.  As the time got closer we became aware that Josh was being sent to the Southeast part of Afghanistan, which is the birthplace of the Taliban.  Due to this being a new location the troops had moved into that meant there wouldn’t be any internet for the first couple of months, so we would have very limited access to one another.  This also meant the dangers and risks of his job were a lot higher as there were an increased amount of RPGs, IEDs and fire fights in the area.  I tried to calm my fears, but being the person I am, I always feel the need to prepare for the worst.  These fears were further brought to reality when we had to make Josh’s living will and testament.  It was all just happening so fast and before I knew it Josh was scheduled to leave.

Unless you have been in a similar situation it is hard to describe the emotions you are feeling as you hug your husband, terrified to let go because you have no guarantee you will ever get to hold him in your arms again; knowing that when you let go, you will not see him for a year as he will be across the globe, on the other side of the world. For me there were such conflicting emotions as I took pride viewing my husband in his uniform, knowing this is what he chose to do.  He wanted to do his part in America’s fight for freedom and protection and I admired him for his choices, but the fear I felt rattled my whole being as it spoke deep within me.  Why did I have to do this pregnancy alone?  Why would my baby now their father for the first six months of their life?  How would I function as I really had no one but myself to rely on?  How would Josh cope with all the stresses he would be under?  Would he be safe?  Would he come home?  There were never any answers, just more questions.

As I kissed Josh goodbye and drove off post I cried.  I cried because I would have to live apart from my best friend for another year and I cried for all the uncertainties.  As I walked into my empty apartment I kept myself busy, waiting day after day for the phone call that he arrived safely.  It was eleven days before I heard from Josh and when I did, it was a short five minute conversations to let me know he was at his FOB (Forward operating Base), he missed me and he would call any chance he could.   It was a couple days after that first phone call that all the really deep emotions hit me.  I was watching television and a commercial cam on that had a mom, a dad and a new baby.  Something so simple and it was the straw that broke my back.  I lie in bed and cried for hours at what Josh and I were both sacrificing.  After I purged myself of my built up emotions, I picked myself up and began living my life day by day. 

My morning sickness was horrendous, and really it was an all day sickness as I had trouble keeping anything down.  Everything I ate made me sick and I lacked any sort of energy.  Seeing as we now had this unexpected gift, I decided graduate school was not what I needed.  Between being pregnant and a new mom all on my own there was no point in adding the stresses of school to that, especially now that being a professor was no longer my goal: being a mom was.  Because of this choice I at least had the luxury of sleeping whenever I was tired and mulling about the house at my pleasure as my body began experiencing all the changes that came with pregnancy.  I tried to keep myself busy as I fretted constantly about my husband and was relieved when I finally heard from him.  I averaged about a call a week and many a times our conversations were cut short as there were incoming rounds coming onto the FOB.  I had many friends who tried to reach out and support me saying they knew how hard it was for me because their husband travelled with work a lot, or they knew how difficult it was to be pregnant and on their own and although I appreciated these stories, I felt like no one understood the ache and concern I constantly carried in my heart.  It was more than just my husband being absent, or being on my own; it was the constant worry that something horrible was going to happen that might forever leave me a widow.

When I was twenty weeks along, my younger sister who lived in Nashville, came down to go to my ultra sound with me as we made our last minute guesses as to what the gender would be.  I was still confidant it was a girl and was so excited to know for sure what our little baby was going to be.  From then on out it would no longer be and it; he or she would have a name.  My sister and I looked with excitement at the baby moving around in my belly.  This miracle, this blessing was now no longer and it; he was Dorian Thomas Borland.  Josh had the opportunity to call that day and I shared with him the blessed news over the phone that he was going to have a son.  I could hear the tender love and excitement over the news as well as the smug I told you it was boy tone.  Although we were continents apart, we still got to share that sweet moment together.