BLC

There's a course I've needed to take for the military for sometime now...like almost three years.  I need it to be eligible for my next promotion.  I've been enrolled three times before, but each time I've had to cancel for a pregnancy or childcare related issue.  So, when my company called back in March and told me there was a slot open that needed to be filled soon, I truthfully wanted to still turn it down, but Justin seemed to think of it as an opportunity to get it done and out of the way.

We decided to send Vivian to Boise for the duration of the three week course.  This was actually the worst part of the training for me.  The worst.  I missed her terribly, but the bright side is that my kid is super resilient.  She came back to me with smiles, and all kinds of stories that are still a bit garbled with her limited vocabulary about "Meemaw"/Grandma, and "Beebaw"/Grandpa.  I think it safe to assume that she did not suffer in her time away.

The first morning we went out to take a PT test.  Just a standard Army PT test.  I've done dozens of these.  It was going well, and then we got to the run.  I was only part way through my first lap of eight, and I felt so tired that I wanted to lay down in the middle of the track and fall asleep.  I attributed this in part to my bunkmate that felt a need to get up at 3:30 that morning to do hair and makeup before a PT test.  Loudly, in an open bay.  Subsequently all 10 people in that bay woke up at 3:30 and remained awake for her preparations.  The test was at 5:00, I got up at 4:30, like most of the other women in the room.

The first day of these sorts of things is always just kind of a blur of leadership trying to be cool and simultaneously crack the whip to show you who is in charge.  It's all pretty uninteresting, and the next several days went something along those lines.  Although, I continued to feel exhausted, I told myself that it was probably still just the early morning wake-ups from the irritating bunkmate.  However, I had a nagging suspicion that there was more to it, and that I may be pregnant.  If the instructors were to find out about a pregnancy I'd be kicked out of the course immediately, which didn't really seem all that unappealing.

My fifth morning there I took a positive pregnancy test and almost missed morning formation because I was still in the latrine madly texting a freak out to Justin about what to do next.  He said to hang in there and get it done.  It really was not the response I had hoped to hear, but I figured he was right, so I forged ahead with the course.  It was terrible.  Morning sickness started to set in by day 7, by day 15 or so I was trying hard every day in the DFAC to just get food in and keep it there.  The last week there just felt like hell.  What would any army training be without wrapping it up with a couple of nights in the field?  I've done funner things in my life.  I've done funner things in the army.

One of our instructors took us on a night hike to the top of a mountain our last night in the field.  I hiked it, but I was super slow getting to the top.

 It's really almost hard to fail at that point in the training, so all I had to do was just kind of get through it.  I did.  I got through it.  I think that's about all that can be said for my field performance.  All the same, I was rewarded at the end when my in-laws trekked down from Idaho for graduation with Vivian.

I don't feel like this kid even looks like she belongs to me, but she does.  She's mine.

Justin had said he couldn't make it, but he did, and having my little family all back in one place was the best part about being done.  I came home and told Justin that I never wanted to leave my bed again.  I felt like I could sleep for a week, were it not for Vivian who will do things like lean in and pant in my face every morning to wake me.  I wake up to her inches from my face with a huge grin on hers, and how can you call that a bad wake up?