Five short months after meeting your Daddy, we were married. Your Daddy asked me to be his wife on November 28th, 2006 and on January 13, 2007 we tied the knot. As cliché as it sounds, it was the happiest day of our lives. We planned our quick Cinderella wedding and your Daddy really did so much of the planning and coordinating that I convinced myself day after day that I had struck gold with him. He sent me roses with a note that said “I can’t wait to take care of you forever.” Take care of me is what he did, Little Angel. I say did because he our lives are no longer about us. Our lives are now surrounded by you.
We made our little house on base housing a home in April 2007. Together we looked at the two extra rooms and thought one day of bringing you home and welcoming you into one of them. We moved from there into a home we purchased to make a better life for ourselves and the you that would come later on, but we still have two extra rooms and knew exactly which one would be prepared for you. We knew for sure that one day there would be a you, we just didn’t know when.
Our careers do not allow us to plan ahead as much as we’d like to Sweet Baby. See, my dear little one, your Mommy and Daddy are both United States Marines. It’s a hard thing to be these days because our country is at war and the Marines have to go away to unknown places for long periods of time. We wear these digital camouflage uniforms and some people call us the toughest, the best, the few, the proud, but I don’t think I’m all that special at all. And while the title Marine is something I worked hard to become, being a mother makes me feel a whole new sense of special. We work for Uncle Sam, except Sweetheart, he is not your biological uncle so don’t expect any birthday cards or Christmas presents from him. Uncle Sam is the name we use for the person who makes all the bad and quick decisions that we Marines must adapt to quickly and accordingly. You may or may not ever grow to love him or even like him, but Dear Baby, he was a very important part of our lives before you. And even Mommy and Daddy don’t care for him too much but he is responsible for us meeting so I must admit that I am somewhat grateful. That somewhat grateful does not make him important to me though. No one is more important than you now. No one.
Oh Sweet Baby, how much I longed for you. I longed for you from the day I fell in love with your Daddy. I had always wanted to be a mother but being a mother with your Daddy on my side is something I could never have even dreamt about. I knew that he and I together would make a great set of parents. I know he really wanted you, too, because he always mentioned the baby we would have someday. When we picked our vehicles, we talked about the car seat fitting in the back and how family friendly the vehicle actually was. So while you were not a glimmer in my belly at all, you were the heart and soul of our lives. You must be wondering, if we wanted you so bad, why we didn’t just plan to have you sooner. Unfortunately for your Daddy and me, it wasn’t up to us Sweet Little One. There were some underlying medical issues that we still can’t quite explain or perhaps there weren’t any medical issues at all and destiny knew more than we did. We are ok with that. If patience is all it took to feel what we feel now, it was well worth the wait.
We worked so hard to make you precious baby. We saw doctor after doctor and tried home remedy after home remedy. Our insurance wouldn’t cover too much beyond a specialist who couldn’t really diagnose us because we had tried for what he said was “only a year.” Apparently, he and his wife didn’t suffer from infertility because this year would never be “only a year” for us and I sincerely thought he had no idea what the words “only a year” made me want to say and do to him. Mommy woke up every morning and took her temperature to check for ovulation. We spent so much money on ovulation sticks and home pregnancy tests and month after month I felt like a failure. I sent a five dollar check with a self addressed stamped envelope off to a little convent in Rome where they would send back a pin with Saint Gerard, the patron Saint of motherhood and fertility and stalked the post lady for weeks until I saw that envelope with my handwriting on it and knew the pin was inside. I prayed that any blessing from anyone, anywhere in the world would help. I wore that pin on my undershirt every single day.
For one whole year, our lives revolved around you, and even after so many feelings of anxiety, denial, anger, confusion, and so many tears, we decided that this would happen for us and we would do whatever it took. I wrote on my notepad at work, “I’d give anything, but I won’t give up” from the Nickelback song “Far Away.” We intended to bring you into our lives and neither one of us cared what it took, Sweet Child, you are already that important. We’d spend the money again, we’d shed the tears, we’d even wait longer, just to have you.
On December 30, 2008, it happened. Mommy saw those two precious pink lines on a home pregnancy test and I knew that at that very moment, I became your mother and you became my entire life. My whole world revolved around you starting that very second. I plotted a sneaky and creative way to tell Daddy because I knew he’d be as excited as I am. Sweetheart, he was thrilled. The joy that gleamed from that grown man’s face is a look I will remember forever. The way he embraced me and knew that there were three of us in that little world by ourselves will forever make that year of struggle and pain worth it. You are worth it, Darling Angel, worth every second of it.
Your daddy and I spend time now dreaming of who you are going to look like, what sort of personality you will have and what your likes and dislikes will be. None of that really matters though, Precious Baby, because you will be perfect to us no matter what. We are already so proud of you and so proud to be your parents, and the reality is that you really haven’t done too much. You did choose us to be your parents though, and for that alone, darling, we are so grateful.
Your first ultrasound picture is the background on both of our cell phones, and we think of you every single time we open one of our phones. That sweet little blob melted our hearts the second the image hit the screen. We didn’t care how unclear the image was, it was you and you represent so much more than a blob to us. You are, after all, our Precious Little Angel. We showed that picture off and hoped that your other family members shared our indescribable happiness. When they did, we knew how loved you already are. Of course, no one can love you more than us. It’s just impossible.
The sound of your little heartbeat aside from the beautiful image on the screen made our hearts melt, and, Dear Sweet One, I can only speak for myself, but my entire world stopped at the sound of that heartbeat. With our struggle to conceive you, I convinced myself of the worst. I convinced myself that someone played some sick joke on us and that you couldn’t really be brewing in my tummy. Well, your heartbeat confirmed that you were. And the most perfect little heartbeat it was.
The doctor looked at us in tears and said “Are you ok?”
Beyond the sobs I said “Yes, I can sleep at night now”.
He smiled and said “You can, your baby is as perfect as can be right now.”
That doctor, Dr. Mark Allen, will never really know how much he touched us with those words. He could never know just how much that ten-minute appointment meant to us. For your Daddy and me, it meant our fears being thrown out the window when we heard your little precious heart. You were in there. You were okay. Nothing else mattered. Only you and that thumping sound. Of course, Daddy worried about my sobbing but I kept telling him that it was okay. I was just so happy.
This all might sound like the perfect life for Daddy and me but remember that uncle I told you about? He might make things hard for us. You see, Baby, we are at war right now. The country is. And your Daddy and I must defend that war. It is the oath we took and it is the job we have. We would love to think that we are bringing you into a world of peace where no hatred exists and no war occurs but unfortunately, Sweet Miracle, that is not the case. I am not too scared about defending that war. My actual job is somewhat safe and our training is very good. I am, however, worried about the war I will fight within myself. The war that I deal with now and will deal with, knowing that I have to leave you.
I would love to convince myself that Daddy and I will never have to leave you, but I might be kidding myself. It’s all I can think of. It makes me ill to think that after finally having you in my arms, someone will take you from me. But I in fact will be taken from you, or maybe your Daddy. I don’t know how I would do it Dear Angel. I am strong but I don’t know if my human strength is strong enough to leave you in the arms of another person while I go away for six or seven months or a year. Thinking of things I would miss or the things your Dad will miss makes me ill. Makes me resent this job, this Marine Corps and this war.
I take some comfort in knowing that you will be little and maybe have no real memory of us ever leaving your side but Sweetheart, that time apart will remain with me forever but I can make the sacrifice of remembering it. I’ll make any sacrifice for you. As long as you are okay, I am okay too, we are all okay. See Darling, you are all that matters to us. Your safety, your well being, your health and your happiness are all that matters. They say that adults turn out to be the glue of their families. Well, dear Little Child of mine, you are the glue that keeps us going every single day. You are the reason why we accomplish our goals and work hard to be successful. You are the one that, even before you existed in this world at war, makes us so happy.
You have no name right now. No face and no gender. That is all superficial and unimportant to me. You have a heartbeat and you have my heart. You stole it the day you were made. Except that you can’t steal something I was so willing to give to you. Dear Sweet Miracle of our lives, I’d like to introduce you to your parents, we are Keith and Stacy. We are not perfect and we are new at this, but we love you and want you to know that even if we leave your side, you never leave us. It’s impossible because you are our angel and you are already such a huge part of us.
