This year had two huge events. In fact, I would say my 24th year held the biggest changes of my entire life. I’m not sure I can talk about just one of them.
In the fall of 2002, I gave birth to my firstborn, Emma. I’ve written out her birth story which old-timers would have read but is now lost from this blog but backed up on my computer and I’m too lazy to copy and paste all that stuff in. Anyway, it was a pretty standard birth. About 11 hours of labor and only 11 minutes of pushing.
The single thing I remember most is when my mom came in the room and I smiled with a whole bunch of pride and said through tears, “I really did it!” I think sometimes when you’re pregnant for the first time you just wonder if you can really do this birthing thing. It’s so scary the first time. But I had done it and I was proud! And at that moment only minutes after I had just become a mother, I still was that little girl beaming to my own mom about what I had accomplished.
Less than 8 weeks later, Scott went about 90 minutes away to police academy for 6 months. He was gone M-F and home on the weekends. I started my job back the week after he left. I can’t tell you the overwhelming emotions and stress I went through at that time. I made it through with a lot of help and support from a lot of people but it wasn’t easy.
The first day back to work I balled my eyes out while pumping milk and talking on the phone to my mother-in-law. It’s a little funny thinking back to it now but at the moment, my world was ending. All I wanted was to be back with Emma at home and I was having to pump and nursing was going so great with her anyway, I had a boss that was not being very forgiving for a first-time mother’s first day back at work and Scott was unavailable and out of town.
About a month of that and I ended up asking to go part-time at work. I decided to take Mondays off and then work 7 hours T-F. That alleviated a lot of stress but I was still having to do the whole schpiel by myself…nursing at night, getting both of us ready in the morning, going to the sitters, going to work and pumping, picking her up, going to visit whoever’s turn it was and then heading home just to go to sleep to start over again. Those months were absolutely exhausting.
It finally ended though when Scott graduated in June of that year. But the changes had just begun. He had gotten stationed in the same city he had trained in and we had to sell our house and move there. I think our families were supportive but none too happy about our move. With a 6 month old granddaughter it wasn’t the first option for sure. To be completely honest, I was kind of excited about the move. I had not moved away for college and Scott and I had only moved 5 minutes away from both of our parents so moving away was a bit exciting for me. After 6 months of Scott being gone and such a hectic time, I was ready for the three of us to really be a family and have some time on our own.
I had a few talks with work and I had planned to quit but they wanted me to finish a few projects and let me work from home. So a few weeks before I turned 25, we packed up our new little family and a new job and headed out of town.