Ethical Delima

i'm in the army and this is presenting a tremendous ethical delima for me. I promised myself that i would never put my children in the circumstances that i endured while I was growing up. I was going to wait until after my service was completed before having a child. God intervened and my precious son will be born in Nov. My child is only 21 weeks old and i'm so in love with him and want his life to be the best it can be.

I don't want to utilize day care. I grew up in day care and hated it. My mom worked so much that until my grandmother died i never really knew my mom. After day care, and later school, I went to grandma's house. When mom got done with work we were already asleep and she drove us home. I only saw her briefly in the mornings before grandma picked us up for daycare/school. My mom was doing her best to make sure we had food on the table and a place to live. She made tremendous sacrifices for us. I know that she wanted the best for us. She didn't plan on having an abusive cheating husband she would have to rescue us from.
I want to be there while my baby grows up. I don't want the only time I see him to be when he is sleeping when I get home and when he is sleeping before I leave. I work from 5am to 7pm. That leaves no mommy baby time. I am not ready to leave my precious son at 4 months and deploy for 2 years. He would never know me. I realize there are many families who do this, however it seems completely unethical to me.

To me how can you have a baby and pay someone else to raise them? How can you give up all the firsts to someone else? How can you let someone else be mommy to your baby?

The second part of this delima is that my husband is also in the military. I out rank him and the dramatic drop in our pay if i stayed home may be too much for us. I'm concerned that we won't be able to meet our obligations. He loves the army and plans on staying as a career. He wants to deploy and said he will volunteer after the baby is born, I'm afraid he won't come back. I don't want to put my baby in poor conditions due to bad finances. To me both are completely unacceptable.

The delima then is do i stay in the army until the end of my obligation december 2008, or take the risk of being in a bad financial situation and hope we can find a way to make it. If I stay to fill my obligation I will deploy in January and not return to the states until 0ctober 2009. What kind of choice is this? I just want to make the right decision for my little baby.

Baby Registeries

Today my husband and I went out for lunch and then for preparation for our Baby Shower. He and his mom have been planning a baby shower for me. They intended to keep it a surprise and have it while his parents and youngest sister were visiting. I found out because I kept pestering him about spending so much money. Finally he gave in and told me about it.

We stopped by Target and Sears and created our registery. I thought it would be painstaking but it was a lot of fun. I let him have the scanner and made sure he incuded the things I wanted as well. He had a blast. I was afraid he would be bored or complain but he was great. Far to often I underestimate how good he is.

He is so excited about the baby. I know he is looking forward to playing with the little one. We were in the toy aisles for some time. It was great to watch him look at toys for him to play with the baby.

The registeries are done I'm glad to be back home. Fortunately since I'm due in Nov. we can leave the list active for anyone who wants to know what we need or want for the baby.

From the beginning

Hello,

I am 24 years old and have had some interesting twists and turns so far and I'm not sure where I'll end up next. I grew up mostly in PA but during my senior year in high school i decided to go to college in Alaska. My mom and I were fighting when I opened the atlas to Alaska and decided that was where I wanted to go. I loved every minute I was up north. During my senior year in college I got married, God only knows what possessed me to do that. Less than six months later we started our divorce paperwork. He was so convinced I would cheat on him while he was deployed he decided he would cheat on me first. Trust me I realize how dumb that sounds, somehow I don't think he ever saw the flaw in that reasoning.

Almost 2 years later I had my degree complete, took a break from school, and was considering colleges for my masters. I don't know what happend the last 4 months I was in Alaska. I think I went a little bit crazy. I joined the army. I left for basic training in July. Ft Leonardwood was hot as hell in July. Granted when I left AK it was a cool 40 degrees and landed in St Louis at 120 degrees and humid. I thought i was going to drop dead. I loved basic training, AIT sucked..but what can you expect when nearly all of your drill sergeants end up in federal prision. After AIT I was selected for additional training which for the most part I enjoyed.

During all of my training I met my current husband. He was my best friend in basic, while I loved the training there were days that he was just about all that kept me going. During AIT he proposed to me and after graduation and christmas we got married. I had to leave him to go back to Ft Leonardwood for my extra training. I got to spend 2 weeks with him in FL, he was in the reserves, before I had to report to Ft Hood. He was able to go active, which he wanted from the beginning, and join me in TX.

After I got to my new unit and began training I found out I was pregnant. I was much relieved that the problem I was having wasn't my ulcers but a baby instead. I am about to hit my one year mark and I have decided that I'm going to leave. I don't ever want to have to explain to my baby why both mommy and daddy are leaving for 2 years. Chris, my husband, wants to make the army his carreer. He loves it and I support him 100%. I think after my kids are in full time school I will go back, but as an officer this time. In the mean time I want to stay with my babbies and work on my masters and maybe my phd.