Bittersweet

Me and Hayden hanging out at the park

So I'm due in two days and just over a month away from separating from active duty. I cannot wait to meet our little guy and am so excited to hold him but the title of this post is "bittersweet" because of my active duty separation.

Hayden's current room, soon to be the new baby's room, after my paint job (it used to be a cream color)

While I know I'm making the right choice for Craig and I and the kids, it's still a little bittersweet. I'm so thankful that the opportunity came up for me to separate and that now the kids will have some more stability with me being home. Despite how excited I am for this new change I'm just a little sad to be leaving what I've known for over the last ten years now. I'm going to miss the great people I've had the opportunity to work with and some of the awesome experiences I've had too. I know I'll be taking on a new role and an even more challenging job as a SAHM (stay at home mom) that will be even more rewarding, there's still a part of me that's going to miss the Air Force and flying. While I've known for a long time, shortly after we adopted Kamea and had Laila, that my priorities had changed and I wanted so badly to be at home with the kids as much as I could, it's a little bittersweet now that it's almost here. Driving on base today it really sunk in when Hayden yelled out "Mommy's airplane, hi Mommy!" as he pointed and waved to a T-1 taking off. This assignment really made me enjoy and love flying again, it was by far the most rewarding of our assignments being able to see the students progress and impart my two cents on them.

One of my favorite pictures from our maternity photo session

While I'll be saying goodbye to active duty I'm very excited to have the opportunity to still serve in the Reserves, I will be working as an Admissions Liasion Officer for the Academy. I'm looking forward to interacting with future cadets and still serving the Air Force, just in a more part time way.

Laila hanging out with Ginobili

Lastly, while I plan on being a stay at home mom I still want to work some, mostly part time and more as a way to help others than a full up job, I decided to venture into a self employed opportunity to become a birth doula. While this will probably come as a surprise to most since I haven't mentioned it to very many people, I'm super excited to have something that I'll be able to do as much or as little as I want and it'll be easy to move with wherever we go next. The reason I chose to pursue being a doula was primarily after we found out about Craig's potential deployment over my due date I realized how tough most military families have it being away from family or a support system during such an important time, the birth of their child. I hope to be able to provide support to both the birth mother and her partner during pregnancy and labor, particularly for military families. I was able to attend a doula workshop a couple weeks ago and will be working towards my certification over the next few months. I'm really excited about this new adventure! If you have a chance, please check out my webpage, abumpintime.com and see what a doula is (I know a lot of people are unfamiliar with what it is) and a little bit more about why I'm choosing this new venture.

Kamea is an awesome big sister

Hopefully the next post will be all about the newest addition, I can't wait to see him! I was late with Laila and even more late, 11 days, with a Hayden so we'll see when this guy decides to show up. Craig and Kamea think he'll be an October baby and I'm thinking that'll probably be true...we'll see!

Sneak peak of the kids Halloween costumes, they wanted to wear them to a birthday party.