As a military spouse, there are a lot of things about this lifestyle that can get under your skin. Some things drive me more crazy than others. I can stand the constant moving, I can handle leaving friends behind no matter how hard it is, and I don't mind meeting new people. But one thing that really grinds my gears is when I go to a military event or function with my spouse and I get those looks... You know the ones I mean. "Oh, look at the cute little civilian. She has no idea what we're talking about or what we do. Let's just ignore her or give her a fake smile." I cannot tell you how many times I've given the same look to a co-worker's spouse when I was enlisted. Guilty! I also used to think that stay-at-home moms had it easy. I mean, I worked 45-hour weeks. I had to deploy for 9 months, including training, and leave my two oldest children, ages 2.5 years and 1.5 years, with grandparents because my spouse deployed at the same time. What could a stay-at-home mom know about that kind of hardship? I had birthed children and had to give them up to daycare six weeks later. I had to PCS for weeks at a time with no idea when I would be back. All of that was hard! I didn't see how a civilian spouse could possibly relate to these experiences. They were so lucky!
I have never been more wrong.
In 2012, I made the tough decision to separate from the Air Force so my husband could fulfill a dream he had always had of being a Military Training Instructor (MTI), the Air Force's version of a drill sergeant. He would be working 18-hour days, seven days a week, and I knew that if I stayed in the Air Force and got tasked with another deployment, our now three children would be living with family members again. I could not put our family through that twice, so separating was the obvious option. I had no idea what I was in for!
We arrived at Lackland Air Force Base in May of 2012, and I was still on Terminal Leave until July when my separation would be complete. Mentally, I was ready to take on the challenges of this new life. Our son was four years old when we got to San Antonio, our oldest daughter was two and our youngest daughter was six months old. It was going to be a challenge handing them by myself, but I was ready! That is, until I realized that something slightly annoying but comforting had been missing from my life and had my husband grab a pregnancy test... that's right! A little number four was on the way, and that was something we had NOT been expecting. Suddenly, I didn't know if I could handle this new life. I no longer had a 45-hour break from my kids each week that gave me the chance to appreciate everything about the time I got to spend with them. They were there when I tried to sleep, there when I had to be awake, there when I went to the bathroom, there when I wanted to eat. You get the picture; they were always there! My husband started MTI school immediately after we arrived and got settled in our new house, so he was non-existent at home.
When I was approximately ten weeks pregnant, I still hadn't been to the doctor's office to get checked out because it was taking the hospital a long time to get us in the system since we had just moved to San Antonio. While walking around the kitchen one day, in a long dress because of the obnoxious heat in Texas, I suddenly felt something on my legs. I looked down and there was blood everywhere. I had three kids in the house, a husband who couldn't answer his phone, no family or friends close enough to call on and I was bleeding profusely, which meant I couldn't drive. I called the squadron where I knew my husband's schoolhouse was and told them it was an emergency and I needed to speak to him. He got in touch with me right away and rushed home to take me to the emergency room at the San Antonio Military Medical Center (SAMMC). I was crying the whole time because I felt so guilty... when I had found out we were pregnant again, I was upset. The timing was wrong, it was unplanned and I could not imagine the stress of handling a newborn and three other kids on my own. Now, thinking that I might have lost the baby, I was mortified. I did want him/her, regardless of the circumstances!
The time spent in the ER was intense and took hours, so I will spare you the many details. Long story short, it turned out I had been pregnant with twins and one baby was not growing properly, so my body flushed the fetus to be reabsorbed. It is called Vanishing Twin Syndrome and is a lot more common than most people think. It was a scary time, and I had a hard time computing that there had been more than one baby, but I was so thankful that I still had one healthy child bouncing around when they did an ultrasound. To say the least, it was a dramatic first year when we moved to San Antonio.
All the drama aside, one of the hardest things for me was no longer having a mission to accomplish. I cleaned the house from morning till night, I started doing online college classes to earn my Associate's in the Science of Photography degree at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh. I kept busy every minute of the day, but there was something missing. I no longer got a pat on the back from my boss for a job well done. I no longer made $50,000.00 a year for working hard all day. And the worst part was, I couldn't be mad about any of it because, after all, it was my choice to have four kids. It was my choice to separate from the military so my husband could live out his dream and my children could still have at least one parent present. I suddenly had an understanding, though, of what it meant to be a stay-at-home parent. It meant giving my spouse the opportunity to experience what they wanted out of life and it meant making sacrifices for the sake of my family. I will never bash a working couple; as soon as the opportunity presents itself, I will happily go back to work and help provide financial stability for our family. What it comes down to is that all parents have their work cut out for them. Raising children is hard, whether they're in daycare or at home with you all day, and we're all doing our best! We need to help each other out and build each other up. It is the only way to make every day the best that it can be.
To check out photos I took as a photojournalist in the Air Force, hop over to my website!
http://laurakhimes.wix.com/colefostphotography
