Wife & Life: Choosing Not to Have Children.... Even When You Desperately Want Them

So, after two years of marriage, baby fever has set in in full swing.  With so many married couples having children, being pregnant or are trying to have kids, it's hard to not want to join them.  Especially with certain parents putting the pressure on!
To be honest, my marriage is amazing! And if it weren't, we probably wouldn't feel so ready to have children.  But the worst part is, we aren't having children because of me. As much as I want them and feel ready, I am just not at a point in my life where children are an option.  choosing to be in the Army has made that difficult.

Now, I am not saying women in the military shouldn't have children, because the Army does some amazing things to help take care of their children.  But as an officer, I know that my days can be incredibly long regardless of my intent to get out on time.  And the longer I stay in, the longer days I will work.  When you work 11-14 hour days, babies don't fit in well.  Ignore the whole not being able to sleep part (though that is a deterrent as well), by the time I get home, my baby would already be asleep.  I would rarely get time with my child and even when I did, I would be too exhausted to truly enjoy it.

And though I could get past all of this, because most days aren't that bad.  But joining the Army is a commitment.  So long as I am in the Army, I need to expect deployments.  To join the Army and hope to never deploy nor fight for your country is saddening.  Even if we weren't at war in Afghanistan (as soon we won't be), you never know when America's Army will be called upon again and as long as I am in the Army, I want to be ready and prepared for that moment.  And I couldn't be a woman who leaves my children and husband at home to go and fight a war.  My heart wouldn't be in it, and I owe it to my Soldiers to want to be there with them.

So, I plan to serve my four years and get out.  I figure as I am close to my contract being up, we will quit preventing children and shortly after start actually trying.  Then I will get out when I have our first child.  At that point, I will be a stay at home mom, work on my MBA and start my own business from home, but that will come in a later blog.

As for now, I will live vicariously through friends and family (and I really look forward to being an Aunt!)

Wife & Life: To Facebook or Not to Facebook

So, over a year ago now, I decided to deactivate my Facebook account.  To be honest, I didn't miss it at all.

My reasons were many and ones you have probably heard before. My top concern was privacy.  About a year ago was the final straw when I learned that stuff I had made private from my beginning on Facebook was available for everyone to see.  I had decided that I didn't want others to see things I was tagged in, since I cannot control what other people post or say.  I don't need to be associated with anything hateful or stupid or mean or whatever and instead of worrying about untagging myself and creating drama ("why did you untag yourself? We're not friends anymore. blah blah blah") I decided I would just make that private for only me to see and not have to worry about offending anyone.  Then I realized that somewhere in the five years I had had a Facebook account, all of that stuff went public, which wasn't a huge deal in itself.  But not knowing this, and having my settings changed without my knowledge, made me mad.

The truth is, Facebook has always played dirty.  And with beliefs like nothing is private anymore, its not surprising the way they deal.  But, that wasn't the only issue.  I am a relatively drama free person.  I like truthfulness and honesty, so backstabbing and infighting are sort of pet peeves for me.  And amongst friends, that isn't really an issue for me.  But in my family, this stuff is pervasive.  There is so much digging and trying to upset people and taking things personal that aren't.  And I was tired of that.

Two other smaller reasons included using Facebook to evade real social interaction (like Facebook stalking could make up for actual conversations) and the way people find themselves in trouble with work and everything else.

So, I still hate Facebook, and don't really miss it, so why am I blogging about it...? Because I find myself in a situation where I am going back.  As much as I hate what Facebook is about, there are definitely upsides.  Facebook makes it easy to stay in touch with friends and family and does so like no other social network on the market.  And with a NTC rotation and a deployment coming up, I find that it will make keeping in touch much easier than trying to email everyone I want to stay in contact with.  Especially since I won't have a cell phone and quick texts are completely out of the question.  However, after I get back from Afghanistan and finish my block leave, I intend to deactivate my account once again.

I intend to continue blogging and using Facebook as a way to share my blog posts.  It will be easier to keep everything consolidated in one place and I want to continue using my blog to share longer posts with stories and anecdotes.  Plus, since I intend to leave Facebook again, I want to make sure I do most of my posting in a place I intend to keep.  But, I will use Facebook as a way to send personal messages and receive them in easy ways.  To cut down on drama, I will delete or block anyone who creates it.  For security reasons, I intend to make it so no one can tag me in anything. (Unfortunately, terrorists have Facebook too and they have used it in the past). &nbsp

So there it is, I am coming back to Facebook and I am sure my parents will be thrilled!