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ciara_d04
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Pregnant during a deployment
ciara_d04
member
Hi Ladies!
Thought that I would intro my self first and then move on to my question. My husband and I have been married for 2 years now, we have a 15 month old daughter who is the light of our life. My husband is getting ready for his 2nd deployment, we are in the training phase right now and will be overseas by late winter.
My question is, how many of you were/are pregnant during a deployment? and how did you hand it. My husband is really wanting to TTC before he goes, our time is limited but really wants to try. I would love a second child, but I dont know how well i would handle the situation while he is gone. I know that we aren't the first and wont be the last that would handle this situation.
Any input and advice is appreciated! TIA
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Re: Pregnant during a deployment
This brought me more comfort than I thought it would. The pre-deployment was the worst, I think! Just *thinking* about the whole experience was daunting. I went through 1/2 my pregnancy, the birth, and am working my way through the first year, all without DH. But being in the midst of it, I can tell you... its not as bad as I had feared. Yes, it sucks sometimes, but definitely not the end of the world.
If you have family or friends around, it is very doable! Make sure to have a support system in place.
GL!!
Ditto the above. DH deployed when I was 5 months into this pregnancy, and won't return until the baby is around 6-7 months old. Going through pregnancy by myself has been a piece of cake, especially since I have a wonderful support network at our current duty station, but I know that single parenting a preschooler and an infant is going to be much, much harder. If we had known he was going to deploy this year we never would have been TTC, but like you already said, people have gotten through this situation before and been just fine, and we will too.
Well, I think I handled it ok, but I don't know what I would have done if we had any older kids for me to also take care of while pregnant.
My advice would be to make plans for what you will do if you have complications. I don't want to ever be pregnant while he's deployed again, because I know there will be weeks (possibly months) that I literally will not be able to take care of our kids by myself because I'll have to be on bedrest, and will likely have to have surgery (cerclage again) because my cervix sucks at being pregnant. I think I had a total of 6 weeks, not combined, when I had a normal pregnancy. Other than that I was either bleeding, puking up to 20 times a day, on bedrest, in surgery, in the hospital overnight, on more bedrest, on stricter bedrest, too miserable to move, etc. Granted, most people have normal pregnancies and are fine to take care of a toddler by themselves, but I would definitely plan for the worst.
Do you have people around you that can come over and clean for you, or "babysit" your toddler if you end up on bedrest? What would you do with her if you end up in the hospital with complications overnight? Or for several weeks? Even if you have plans to handle what might be thrown at you, do you think you can emotionally handle it without your husband, because pregnancy complications are hard?
Also, for a normal pregnancy, are you ok with him missing feeling the baby move? Are you ok with him missing seeing you get bigger (in person)? Are you ok with him missing appointments, ultrasounds, finding out if it's a boy or girl, baby showers, having to figure out names by phone, and all that? Are you ok with him possibly missing the birth? Even without complications it can be emotionally challenging.
You have to decide this for your husband and yourself. Obviously, he's going to miss something at some point, and plenty of us have been pregnant during deployments and survived just fine. It's a very personal decision.
My husband deployed when I was about 14 weeks or so. I also have 2 other kids but they were a little older. At that time they were 4 and 6. I think I handled it very well, especially for being sick as a dog the entire 9 months and being in Germany with no family. I had some amazing friends around me that helped me out and such.
My husband was not there for the birth. My first 2 were born early so we had no clue how to try and plan it for him to be there. I didn't want him to come home before she was born then me go over due and have him not meet his child until he came home for good. One of my friends was in the delivery room with me, she is awesome. I had 2 friends prepared to take my older girls. I made sure I had a backup and SO happy I did since the main one didn't answer her phones when I was in labor. If the second one was unavailable then the girl that came in the delivery room would have watched them and I would have gone alone. My husband was actually online when my water broke so he was the first to know. He was able to call me a few times while I was in labor so that was great. I told all of my family that no one would see pictures until my husband seen her. My mom was ticked but that was how my husband and I wanted it since he couldn't be there. I sent him pictures then he seen her on webcam shortly after we got home.
He came home for R&R when she was 2 months old. I think it was the perfect time since by then she wasn't just sleeping all day and she was starting to show some personality.
For him while he was gone he seen her on webcam all the time and I emailed pictures often (of my belly and our daughter after she was born). He would use the mic on the computer so she could hear his voice and get use to it. For her I printed some pictures of him and put them in a baby photo album (by Sassy I think) and she would look at it while doing tummy time.
She was 6 months when he came home. For her it was like she knew him all along (except at the homecoming ceremony at 3 am). I would rather him miss so much of the pregnancy and first few months and be there for so much of her first year and after. We tried to get pregnant for almost a year. We talked about holding off but decided to keep trying.
I am currently on the last days of my pregnancy and my DF is deployed to Afghanistan. For some crazy reason we decided to try for the last 2 months he was home to conceive and sure enough, the 2nd month we did. He deployed when I was maybe 6 weeks pregnant so he really missed everything. The M/S hadn't even begun yet.
The pregnancy itself has not been bad, but this is my 3rd deployment (1st with him) so they get earier as you go anyways. The time has flown being busy with pregnancy, school, and work. It has definately made time go by so much faster!
As for the emotional part, that has been hard. This is our first, so DF is missing out on the kicks, the belly, everything. Being in a remote part Afghanistan we didn't get to talk much, and opted for a $350 a month cell phone bill so we could text each other. DF is more affected by all this than I thought he would be. Initally I thought he got off easy. He gets me pregnant, leaves, comes home for the birth, leaves again for 4 months. I was so wrong. He is very hurt by not being able to be here, and we recently lost one of his best friends over there which has been extra hard on everyone.
Its totally possible to do it, alot of people do. But I will NEVER do this again. He's missing out on so much precious time when LO will be so tiny. And especially is you have another child, thats ALOT to deal with!
All of this but the bolded especially. DH left when I was 8 weeks pregnant and returned a week before DD was born. He missed everything dealing with the pregnancy. I was really ill (on medication to keep food down) and had many complications. I don't think I could do it alone again because I would have no one to help with DD. Its not impossible to do, but not ideal for us either. GL!
With a toddler at home already, I do think it would be hard. . . But, as military spouses, it is often not a question of if but when will they deploy. Talk to your DH and see what works best for your family. If we all waited for the optimal time to have babies, we'd be waiting a long time! Good luck with your decision!
Obviously a lot of woman have gone through it, but I knew when I married him that I wouldn't want to be pregnant when he was gone. He'd already missed out on the first 5 years of DD and was about to miss another year..I didn't want him to miss another pregnancy. Also, *I* wanted to share it all with him. So we waited.
It's a very personal choice to make and one you should make together. Good luck!
True! We were on birth control, and we knew he'd be leaving in the next two months. Well two months after he was gone, I find out I'm pregnant!!! Apparently our b/c method failed. I'm due in 24 days, and his R&R is scheduled to where he comes home in 17 days! We are cutting it sooo close! But yes, I can't say I know what the other ladies are feeling, but I say I'd rather be pregnant while he's gone than for him to miss the first words, steps, etc. It's not fun having to go to my appointments alone or having to substitute him with my friends for classes is not ideal. He hasn't had a chance to feel my tummy move or any of that, but I think I'd rather this any day. Also, if your base/post has a centering group, I HIGHLY recommend you join that! I am in one now, and absolutely love it!
True! We were on birth control, and we knew he'd be leaving in the next two months. Well two months after he was gone, I find out I'm pregnant!!! Apparently our b/c method failed. I'm due in 24 days, and his R&R is scheduled to where he comes home in 17 days! We are cutting it sooo close! But yes, I can't say I know what the other ladies are feeling, but I say I'd rather be pregnant while he's gone than for him to miss the first words, steps, etc. It's not fun having to go to my appointments alone or having to substitute him with my friends for classes is not ideal. He hasn't had a chance to feel my tummy move or any of that, but I think I'd rather this any day. Also, if your base/post has a centering group, I HIGHLY recommend you join that! I am in one now, and absolutely love it!
I'm a little late, but I thought I'd share my experience. We were TTC for 14 months before DH deployed to Afghanistan. Lo and behold, about a week after he left, I got a BFP. They were supposed to come home after about 5 or 6 months, so they didn't get R&R. Of course, they got extended. They were just starting to give them R&R about 4 weeks before I was due. DH was put on the 2nd wave because that was closer to my due date. After the first wave got home, they decided everyone was coming home and that delayed DH even longer. I had DS 13 days before he got home.
DH missed EVERYTHING. The BFP, all the dr appts, every U/S, every kick, every mood swing, the entire birth. He didn't even know that I was in labor until about 20 minutes after I had given birth when he happened to call and heard a baby crying in the background.
It was hard some days. I had a lot of emotional ups and downs and I would often take out my frustrations in emails. Thankfully, he would call me before reading his email and I could tell him what was safe and what to delete without reading. We still joke about how he was probably safer in Afghanistan than being at home with a pregnant wife!
Other days, it was a God-send to be pregnant at that time. I was busy getting ready for the baby, so I didn't have time to feel sorry for myself. I bought what I liked, decorated the nursery how I wanted to, ate whatever I wanted and moved furniture when I felt like it.
However, the long lasting emotional implications is the reason I would tell someone not to do it. This is my first child and my husband's second. He was not present at either birth (first one was in high school, there was a lot of baby mama drama and the baby was adopted). The fact that he missed everything weighs heavily on both of us. Sometimes it's tempting to have another child to have another chance to do it 'the normal way' now that he is out of the Army.
I guess my point is that, it's doable. I was far away from my family (I stayed on post), but I had a few very close friends who helped me along the way. If I hadn't had them, it would have been much harder. But would I do it again? Very most likely not.
I went through this with our first child. DH left on deployemnt when I was about 2-3 months pregnant, barely even showing, and returned when our first born son was about 1.5 months old.
Biggest advice, make sure you have a support network of family and/or friends. Don't sit around your house and mope because that will just make it harder. I gopt involved with the FRG and even though it was mostly just monthly potluck style meetings it was just so nice to get out of the house and be around other wives (even one or two hubbies) some who were in the smae boat as I was. I also found a local preggy women's group and went to a few outings with them, though sadly they never really did much/no one would show up half the time. Oh, another thing the FRG was able to do (and not all ships can do this, but look into it) was set up video-teleconference calls. I signed up, would be told what time and day to show up at the family support center (usually weekday afternoons) and I would get a wonderful 10-20 minutes of face to face time with the hubby. He got to see my growing belly that way and I got to see his face and really know he was safe. He also did one of those videos where he is reading a storybook so I could play it in the house and hope my lil one would hear daddy's voice and learn to recognize it.
Finally, at the end of my pregnancy, as soon as I was eligible for maternity leave and before airlines were going to cut me off, I arranged to fly back home and spent the last month of my pregnancy with my parents back in tx. That way I wasn't alone in labor and I had family to help me out. I cannot tell you how wonderful it was to have my mom at my side during labor. I was also lucky that my hubby was able to call from the ship while underway during my labor. His chain of command was really awesome and he was able to stay on the phone with me for hours while I was in labor and he got to hear his son's first cry. I literally had my cellphone on speaker sitting on my chest the whole time and the doctors were sure to include him, telling him to tell me to push. I stayed with my folks until my hubby got back from deployemnt and we all flew home together after a week longer with my folks to help us out.
Thankfully for this pregnancy my hubby is on shore duty so he's getting to experience it all. Guess we'll see how he does in the labor room for real next week. LOL