A heartbeat, a promise.

I have a secret to tell, and a promise to make. The secret's been needing to come out, but the inspiration for sharing it now came from (of course) one of Mama Kat's writing prompts. Writing for that prompt is a few weeks late, but I simply wasn't ready to share at that point.

You see, folks, The Hubby and I are going to have a baby, and I'm so happy it's ridiculous. We haven't told many people yet, because I wanted to give it as much time as I could stand. I always planned on waiting until that end-of-first-trimester mark, just in case, but in our special circumstances that milestone would fall way too close to The Hubby being gone away to boot camp. And maybe it's just me, but announcing a pregnancy after The Hubby is out of state seems like a recipe for disaster. However, announcing it before he leaves comes with its own set of risks as well... This is where the aforementioned "promise" comes in. Really, though, there are multiple promises about to be made (promises are easy to make at this stage, before fetus becomes screaming infant/screaming toddler/screaming child in public/screaming teenager). In any case, I compromised and have waited to inform the rest of the world until we heard a heartbeat. This morning, we heard a heartbeat...(!!!) So here come the promises.

To my unborn child,
I promise not to give birth to you in jail. Please let me explain: When informing someone of or confirming the pregnancy to someone, every time someone says "But isn't The Hubby leaving soon?" (Very soon, actually... he leaves this Sunday.) what I will want to say is "OH MY GOD, HE IS, ISN'T HE??? I HADN'T EVEN THOUGHT OF THAT AT ALL." What I will want to do is hit them, hard, for asking stupid questions. This could land me in jail, so I promise not to do that. This question has already happened once. I think what I will do in the future is give the short answer, "Yes", and let them keep talking and pushing long enough to realize what they are implying about my capabilities through their shock, sympathy, flabbergastery. (Shut up spell check, it should totally be a word.)

I promise to try to be patient with those people, and all the follow-up questions they will have relating to my (obvious) inability to handle my life and a pregnancy without The Hubby living in the same state. (The simple answer for you, Gentle Reader, is that I have absolutely no idea what to expect, Hubby-wise. The only thing I know at this point, with him going into boot camp under an open contract, is that he will go to boot camp, graduate the end of July--which is WAY before baby due-date--and have 10 days of leave before needing to return for combat training. How long his combat training is, and any information about his schooling/how long it takes/whether he'll be "home for baby birth"/where he'll be stationed/when I'll get to move with him depends on information we will not receive until the end of his boot camp, or possibly later than that. Obviously there are a lot of unanswered questions at this point. However, that is something that I have absolutely zero control over. I am choosing to focus on the things that I do have control over, because whether he's able to be present or not, I'm still going to have a baby. With his amazing decision to make this commitment to improving our lives, we both accepted that there would be things he would have to miss. If this is one of those things, so be it. If we didn't both feel I was able to put my big girl pants on and deal with life all by my poor little self, he wouldn't have enlisted. But I digress.)

Let's get back to the promises. I promise to love you unconditionally. I promise to do everything in my power to be a good parent. I can't promise to be a stay-at-home mom, or that I'll always be working outside of the home. I can't promise I'll never put you in day care, I can't promise you we won't have to move a lot when you have a Marine for a father, and I can't promise that we'll have an easy life. Lives don't generally come with an "easy" setting. I can promise that I will not lightly make decisions regarding things that will have an impact on your life. I promise to be as fair as possible, and to try to remember what it's like to be a kid, and a pre-teen, and a teenager, and to let you make your own mistakes. I promise to support your dreams and give you what you need, but I also promise to not be your gravy train if disability doesn't render you unable to support yourself. Otherwise, you're going to have to make your own way in the world. I promise to do everything in my power to guide you towards being a decent human being, but to also acknowledge that there's a point where you make and have to live with your own decisions, whether I like them or not.

I promise to show you the importance of and the possibility for healthy relationships. I promise to embarrass you with my love and affection towards your father, and to not put you in the middle of any of the little conflicts that all couples face. I promise that by hook or by crook The Hubby will change your diapers, will be a dad and not a disgruntled "babysitter", will not look at you as an irritant or a piece of furniture, and will love you as unconditionally as I do. If any of these conditions are not met, I will reinforce my promise to show you the importance of healthy relationships over dysfunctional or half-assed ones. (Please note I don't fear this will be an actual issue, I just know a married couple or two where the dumbass male could care less about their child and I hate him for it, and hate her for accepting his behavior.)    

I promise to treat you as a human being, and to not post on Facebook, Twitter, or this blog about things that I wouldn't want people to comment on if it was me I was talking about. For example, if you're a boy child, I will not share if you are or are not circumcised. I am not going to discuss my child's genitalia with anyone whom it does not concern. Also, I will most likely not be sharing baby names because, again, I don't feel like it necessarily needs to be a group discussion.

I promise to read to you. A lot. I promise that you will know about cars, because The Hubby wouldn't have it any other way. Boy or girl, you will be helping change oil, change tires, and whatever else. I wish I could promise that TV shows for babies and children will not be shown, but apparently babies love that shit. I can promise not to loudly blast death metal to drown out the sounds of the TV while you're watching such filth. I wish I could promise to never use "foul" language in your presence, but I don't make promises I can't keep.   
Remember the last part of that last sentence, Dear Fetus, the part about not making promises I can't keep. It's still early in this pregnancy, but I'm so excited!

To my readers, whether frequent or occasional, this right here is the reason I haven't been posting much recently. There is so much I've wanted to talk about, but a lot of it ties into this pregnancy. Now that the secret is out, much more detail and updating is to come post-wise. I hope you all enjoy this journey with me...