Chapter 20 Marriage and Military
Life is tough, my darling, but so are you.
-Stephanie Bennett Henry
We were stationed in Abilene, Texas at Dyess Air Force Base for Kirk’s training for four months. We would be there from September to January. He had been chosen to be the crew chief for the KC-135 aircraft and was excited about it. I packed again and met him there. We got a little apartment but had no furniture, but our wedding presents were being mailed so at least we had dishes, pots and pans, and utensils. We used a small ironing board that was in the apartment and propped it on a milk crate as our dining room table and sat on the floor to eat. We had sleeping bags and pillows for our bed and used boxes on their sides for our clothes. There was a woman who lived below us with a six-week-old baby. She was a stripper and I was her nanny, which worked great.
Christmas meant buying stockings that had the iron on letters from the dollar store. I screwed the letters up because they were uneven, and I burnt the thin material when I ironed them on. We had no furniture or anything on the walls, so I used push pins and hung the stockings on the wall. My mother sent us a couple presents, but otherwise we were a young, newly married couple that was starting with nothing. Christmas was us together, waking up in each other’s arms in our sleeping bag bed and making love.
I loved being Kirk’s wife. More than anything. He was the most amazing husband–always sweet, romantic, sensual but not always great at communicating. Not that I was much better, being young and in love thinking we’d be blissfully happy every day. We had a Christmas party and Kirk got hit on in front of me. Actually, the woman came up to me drunk and told me how lucky I was to be married to him and that she’d love to fuck him. He was gorgeous, so he got hit on a lot. But so was I. I didn’t elicit direct contact like that, though, and I felt like Kirk didn’t handle it great. He didn’t really say anything, and I wished he would have said something, something like he loved being married to me and it didn’t matter what she wanted. But he tended to be quiet.
Our First Assignment
We ended up being stationed in Oahu, Hawaii at Hickam AFB. Hawaii sounds tropical and romantic, but we knew it was one of the most expensive tours and he had no rank yet. We had gotten to know another young couple during Kirk’s training that also got stationed in Hawaii, so we decided to rent a house together. Kirk and I drove to Los Angeles to get the car on a boat. All our very meager belongings were shipped and our dog Spade was in quarantine. We arrived in Oahu and began the search for a place to live and jobs. We found a house to rent in a smaller town called Waipahu and got settled. Kirk worked part time for Budget rental cars, shuttling them at night to where they needed to go. I got a job at a veterinary clinic, first at the front desk, but I shortly moved to a tech position. I loved it there. I also got a part- time job downtown at a high-end sunglasses shop in Restaurant Row called Optiks. It was OK money to supplement, but I didn’t like it as much as the vet clinic.
Between how expensive everything was and working so much, we weren’t ever able to learn to surf, spend much time at the beach, or travel to any other islands. We also didn’t see each other much, and, even in a good situation, living with another couple is less than ideal. But we were getting along OK. Kirk was assigned to the four-star general’s plane and flew everywhere the general went. I couldn’t know where he was going or what he was doing, but what the wives were told is that they were in someplace like Italy. This wasn’t exactly a lie since that was their base of operations, but that didn’t mean that’s what they were there for. Kirk bought me some small gift at every stop. I started a knick-knack collection to put on a small shelf unit Kirk made for me.
Once family members were invited to the general’s plane for dinner and a flight around the islands while we ate, chatted, and got to know each other. We were the families that would be left behind while the crew were gone, so it was nice to meet everyone. Ultimately, I didn’t spend much time with any of them, but it was reassuring to have people’s phone numbers and at least to have met in the event I needed to call one of them. The crew would be gone at least half of every year, so that meant it was hard on families.
Healthcare was now military, so it meant I could go to the doctor. At a dental appointment, I had wisdom teeth that were bothering me. They were coming in straight, so it was an easy extraction. I only had two wisdom teeth, so the dentist joked that I was a half-wit. Other than being terrified by needles still, the operation was pretty easy. In June, Kirk and I celebrated our first anniversary. This year of being broke, being apart, and travelling had taken its toll. We still wanted to have a family, so I went for an annual exam.
Infertility Struggles
It had been a year of no birth control and also no periods and no pregnancies. Nothing. My general physician sent me to an infertility specialist. At my first appointment, I told him that I was only 20 years old, married, and we wanted kids, but infertility sounded aggressive. He reassured me that the tests were the same regardless of whether or not I got pregnant. 21 was the most fertile age for a woman, and we could start by trying to figure out what the issue was. So we began.
There were seven “day” surgeries, which meant I left shortly after they were performed and there was no hospital stay. They were uncomfortable, painful, exhausting, and emotionally draining. Each surgery looked for something different. Blocked ovarian tubes, an issue with the cervix or lining of the uterus, endometriosis, etc. For every surgery there was a needle, the forced opening of my cervix, pain, and some bleeding afterwards. With our schedules and Kirk being gone sometimes, I went to these appointments alone. I would sit in the bathroom or exam room crying after they were done and drive myself home cramping and bleeding. Being terrified of needles made this even more difficult. I decided I was doing it for a child, so ultimately I got past my fear through a higher desire.
I was put on Provera–a type of progesterone to get me to have a period. Not only did I get a period, they came on like a tsunami. I was also put on Clomid to initiate ovulation. I was on the maximum dosage of 250 mg of Clomid, which caused me not to be myself. I was a little snappy and I cried more easily–two things I didn’t like at all. Infertility is emotional enough without adding hormones, but that’s the way it works. We also had to track my morning temperature and our sex life. We were expected to have sex every other day so the sperm count wasn’t too low but it was enough sex to keep live sperm in me. Sex went from something amazing that we loved to a chore. The romance and passion were dying because we were scheduling. We tried to make it fun–let’s pretend my orgasm gets us pregnant–or just joking and playing, but ultimately sex became one more thing that was putting stress on our marriage.
The emotions from the surgeries and the hormones made a difficult situation feel more awful. I felt like a failure because my body couldn’t do what it was supposed to do. I felt like less of a woman. I felt broken physically. I felt that way emotionally for so long and worked on myself, but I couldn’t fix myself physically.
The surgeries all came back normal. The doctor didn’t see anything wrong. However, my bloodwork, which I had done weekly, didn’t look good. Estrogen should have been high with all the meds I was on, but the level barely showed at all. The doctor told me he didn’t know why I wasn’t able to get pregnant, but that my chances were almost zero with my hormone levels and lack of a regular cycle. In vitro fertilization was my only option. I didn’t want to do IVF, though. It was too much for me. I had been physically and emotionally going through infertility for a few months now, and I was exhausted. I was done. I told him to wean me off of the medication, so I could just go back to living my life, knowing I wouldn’t be able to have children. We started doing the blood work to get me off medications, and a week later I went back in for blood work.
Big Surprises
I went into the infertility office the next week. My doctor came in and hugged me, which seemed odd. I liked him a lot, but he had never hugged me before. “You’re pregnant,” he said. “I don’t know how. Medically it doesn’t make sense. You shouldn’t be able to get pregnant. Your levels show you conceived off the schedule we put you on.” I was stunned. I was pregnant. Holy shit, I got pregnant!! “Maybe,” I said, “It’s not something from one of your books.” I felt there was a Higher Power involved in me getting pregnant and perhaps doctors get too hung up on the black and white of medicine and forget about Divine Intervention. And I left the office with another hug and lots of congratulations.
Wanting to be pregnant and being told I would never be able to and then finding out I was put me on an emotional pendulum. I got sick fast and threw up regularly. It was a rough pregnancy, although a very wanted one. It was a little unreal for Kirk. He was in disbelief and then happy. He came with me on the day I was getting my ultrasound. He wanted to find out the gender and I didn’t, but his enthusiasm was contagious, so we told them if they got a good shot of the goods, to let us know. We watched this tiny little life moving around inside of me, making the pregnancy seem tangible. “You are having a little girl!” the tech said. A little girl. Wow.
Kirk was beaming when we were walking out of the hospital. We had been discussing names and had settled on both a boy and a girl name. “Honey bunny, we’re having a little girl!” Kirk said with his arm around me pretty much hugging me and rubbing my swollen, little belly. “It’s a girl! Holy cow she’s moving all around in there!” He leaned down while we were walking and said, “Hello, little Brianna. This is your Daddy. We are very excited to have you.” It was one of the highest moments of my life: the euphoria of being pregnant with this little girl and a husband who was ecstatic.
Becoming A Warrior Princess
Infertility was awful. I did, however, get past my fear of needles and never had an issue moving forward. It was also worth having Brianna, who is 24 right now and the most amazing woman. Infertility is extremely taxing on a relationship, which I didn’t know going into it and didn’t see clearly going through it. I was blessed to have gotten pregnant. I also knew I would never do it again. I decided since I wanted to do foster care and adopt anyway, I would never let another doctor touch me again to get pregnant. It would either happen on its own or not. I did take progesterone every three months to induce a period, but that was a double-edged sword. Sometimes I would hemorrhage and need to take birth control pills to stop the bleeding once it started. I either had nothing or too much.
I loved being married and I loved being in the Air Force with Kirk. It was a great experience and a time when I grew up a lot. With all the transitions and trials, I look back on that time with fondness.
Triumph with Love
My faith got me through infertility. I knew one way or another I’d have a family because it was important to me. I had given up a dream to move with Kirk, join the military, and try to start a family.
LEARN AND GROW
• We are so much stronger than we give ourselves credit for, both physically and emotionally
• We can use that strength and our own will to get through difficult times
• You are strong enough
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