I brought children into this dark world because it needed the light that only a child can bring.
~Liz Armbruster
I have a secret. And I can’t tell my family. But Huzzy is already tired of discussing it. Because it still kinda scares him. So I have to share. You won’t tell, will you? Promise? Especially if you are on my Facebook or know anyone I know in real life.
Huzzy and I made a decision this morning. A decision that is pretty big for us.
You see, my shoulder is still injured. And my orthopedic surgeon is disagreeing with what the radiologist said on my MRI (yes, I will be seeking a 2nd opinion after I let him try one more shot of steroids to see if it helps). Which means I’m not anywhere close to getting this resolved. I was told I needed surgery according to the MRI report by my PCM. She said it was a tear of the labrum and since nearly a year of physical therapy hasn’t worked, then surgery was my only option.
Why is this important (other than I’m constantly in pain/uncomfortable and can’t do everything I used to)? Well, my shoulder had to heal in order for me to raise my hand and get Afghanistan over with. I’ve known for the last seven months or so that my Navy Reserve community was shrinking the number of billets needed and was told the next two years would decrease by a lot more. Now that President Obama has announced the draw down in Afghanistan, this is even more assured.
So why was Afghanistan so important? Because I wanted to get my deployment out of the way so that we could go on with our lives and start a family. I wanted to avoid having a kid be left with someone other than his/her parents (since Huzzy deploys too) while I went overseas. I wanted to get it out of the way before I found a full-time job here. I thought I’d be in Afghanistan right now. And I would be, if it wasn’t for my shoulder. Right now, my community is filling billets 10+ months in advance, so once my shoulder got okay, it’d still be nearly another year before I could start the deployment.
But I’m not getting any younger. And I’ve recently had a uterine cancer scare (won’t know for sure for another two months to see if the drugs I’m on stop my symptoms… if not, then I might and will have to do further testing).
So Huzzy and I have decided to forego raising my hand for Afghanistan.
And I’m going to take the next six months or so and lose the weight I need (from both recent drugs and a few years of it creeping up) and get in really good shape.
And then we are going to try and start having a family.
I even bought pre-natal vitamins today because my OB/GYN wants me to be on them for about six months before we try to conceive.
Of course, we never know what will creep up in those six months. And we aren’t telling our families or friends (keep ya traps shut! =P) because they’ve been wanting us to start since we got married more than two years ago. And I don’t want to hear the “are you yet?” questions.
And of course, if it does turn out that I have uterine cancer, I will most likely have to have a hysterectomy and not even get to try to have kids. But having kids BEFORE it turns to cancer could help push the cancer off into the future (family history says it’s 90% sure I’ll get it eventually… most likely in the next 10 years). And of course, Huzzy still has another deployment and a half in the next year or so, so that may interfere with timing.
We already know we won’t announce it to ANYONE until we are 2-3 months along anyway, so this is the last time you’ll hear me talk about this. Unless I happen to have a hard time conceiving. Or something scarier happens… then I’ll probably need to vent.
But yeah… Afghanistan is out… kids are in!
(please feel free to use this!)
