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Dakota. I am originally from Orange County, California, so living in
the extreme cold is not my first choice. My husband Ryan is a
construction worker for the Air Force and was stationed in Grand Forks
AFB, North Dakota for 2 ½ years. Ryan and I got married on May 16th,
2009 and I got pregnant shortly thereafter. During the first few
months of being married we were absolutely broke financially and we
had a few growing pains of learning to live together and do things
together. I also tried to find a job but never got hired so we
finally just made do with one income. One strength through this period
of time is that we always trusted the Lord and He provided for every
need and several wants. We moved from our first house to the house on
base in September, 2009 and that was a huge blessing both financially
as well as in square feet, we literally doubled the house size. Now
that Ryan is in Korea, I still have the base house here in North
Dakota, which has been good, but would be much better with family in
the area.
Ryan first received his orders to Korea in July, 2009, but he got
approved by his commander to turn them down due to my pregnancy. I
had some complications throughout the pregnancy and Ryan was supposed
to be able to turn down orders for any reason on the first enlistment.
The turning down of those orders was denied by the Air Force
Personnel Center in September so he then tried to change the report no
later than date so that he could see Micah’s birth. That also came
back denied, so we then became mentally prepared for when Ryan left
for Korea in February, 2010, that he wouldn’t see the birth.
Thankfully we were prepared because he didn’t even get to see it over
webcam due to it being a c-section birth. Ryan bought everything for
Micah’s room that he’d ever need until Ryan could come back, the only
thing that we needed more of was diapers and wipes. Ryan even
replaced my car with a 2002 Ford Escape in November because my last
car was falling apart and we needed something more dependable and
family oriented. We were blessed to know that we really didn’t need
anything past diapers and wipes for Micah when he was finally born on
March 25th, 2010. Micah was in ICU for 4 days due to him being born
with air outside of both lungs that didn’t allow the lungs to expand.
He quickly healed and is perfectly normal now, just really ornery…
We also were blessed in that for the week that Micah was born, my
family (dogs included) came up from Oklahoma and stayed in our house
and took care of me and the dogs, cooked, cleaned, started Ryan’s
pickup once or twice, and drove me and my car to the hospital when I
went into labor. They had to go home just as I was getting out of the
hospital, but they left some cooked food in the refrigerator, as well
as a friend from church has a small group who has been cooking and
delivering meals for me, too.
One big strength we have had since Ryan has been gone is that we have
grown closer together. We trust each other a lot more now than we
ever had before. We have had some struggles with people trying to
break our marriage apart both in the states and while Ryan has been
away, but we have built our trust and our love to handle anything
thrown at us. We choose not to argue anymore and make the most out of
our conversations the we do still get to have. We are very thankful
for technology, web cams are a huge help in communication. Web cams
have also helped in that Ryan now gets to see Micah each day, too. I
also have sent Ryan several packages of stuff he’s needed and wanted
since he’s overseas and can’t get a lot of what he needs there. He
encourages me when I’m down and tells me that I can make it through my
struggles. I had post partum depression for a couple of days right
after I had Micah and came home from the hospital and Ryan helped me
see that it was just my emotions that everything was still under
control and being handled. We had Ryan’s aunt ready to fly up on a
moment’s notice if I needed any help after bringing Micah home, but I
so far have done very well at taking care of Micah and the dogs since
we’ve been home from the hospital.
Ryan has been very busy in Korea, he’s been working 60-70 hours every
week with barely a day off each weekend. Yesterday he worked a 24
hour shift, had 12 hours off and went in to work again for a few
hours. He is volunteering at the base Chapel, playing bass guitar and
helping with sound, slides, setup and teardown. He says that time is
flying by on his end, the days are running together so much that he
actually has to look at a calendar to figure out what day it is. He
likes a lot of things there in Korea better than in North Dakota, but
he really misses us and he doesn’t get paid much more than he did here
in ND to be away from us for the whole year. The big motivation for
both of us is that right after he comes back we have a follow-on
assignment to Florida. I am very excited to see the beaches again and
really could care less if I ever see snow again. We have even
started preparing the decorations for our house in Florida, all the
decorations in the bathrooms is movable to the next house, and we even
have a “Welcome to the Luau” sign for the front door. Time is flying
on my end now that Micah is born too, it was really dragging before
that because I only had the dogs for company, but now I think it will
fly by and Ryan will be home before I know it.
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