Post-Military Life

                When I initially decided to separate from the Air Force under the pregnancy clause, I decided it would be a brilliant idea to turn around and enlist in the Air Force Reserves. That way, I could retain TriCare for my family and only work part-time, which would be phenomenal with a new baby. After arriving in Washington and speaking with the in-service recruiter at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, however, the reserves unit here decided they wouldn’t take me because my last official physical fitness test was a failure. They didn’t want to set me up to fail again after joining, since I was pregnant at the time—it made sense, so I decided I’d try again a few months after having my baby.

                I stand by my decision to separate. As a breastfeeding mother, I rest easily in the knowledge that I can provide for my daughter better as a civilian than I could have as an Airman—regardless of whether or not my husband had been able to remain enlisted. At the time of my decision to separate, I didn’t know how much longer Randy would be in the military; the mental health clinic was working on the paperwork to have him go through the Medical Evaluation Board (MEB) for separation, which can take up to a year to fully process. He would have been stuck in place at Spangdahlem while I was scheduled to PCS (change bases) in August, 2014 (I would have moved right after Persephone was born). The last thing I wanted to do was get to my next base and have to worry about finding child care; I refused to take my baby to the on-base Child Development Center (CDC) with what I knew about Spangdahlem’s CDC and I sure as hell didn’t want to start screening babysitters. I generally don’t trust people.

                It has taken me some time after separating—and upon deciding to separate and getting the ball rolling to do so, it was decided that Randy’s separation would be much, much faster than an MEB because his would be an administrative discharge instead—but I have finally realized something very important about myself.

                Everything I had done with my life up to that point—short of the decisions to get married and separate from the military—I had done to impress my family and make them proud of me. Joining the military—I wanted my grandparents, particularly my grandma, to be pleased with the decision I’d made post-high-school to move forward in my life and become independent, as I’m a fiercely independent person anyway but hadn’t decided what I wanted to do, really. After joining the military, getting a bit out of shape, and deciding to get back into shape for my own happiness (it was working), I was looking at new clothes in a completely different style from what I really like. I was beginning to replace my wardrobe with jeans, scarves, nice coats (oh, they’re nice and I’m keeping them, but my intentions for how to wear them have changed), and… well, white and generally much less black. In addition to the lightening of my wardrobe, I’d grown my hair out just past my shoulders, which was, suffice to say, very much not me. I really prefer my hair short and ready to spike up at will.

This is an acceptable outfit—would be more so if the undershirt were black.

This is where my wardrobe was going—maroon and white—and the skirt is acceptable but there simply isn’t enough black, here.

                I like having a dark wardrobe. I like having black as my primary color and I like wearing dark makeup. I like looking intimidating and formidable, strong and confident. Since being denied entry to the reserve unit here at JBLM, I’ve realized I don’t particularly want to join the Reserves at all, particularly since my only real reason for doing so is for the insurance—something that we can get with the VA anyway. I’ve begun revamping my wardrobe again—this time, it should be permanent. I’ve bought some long skirts, mostly black but one brown and one green. I’ve decided I want to wear primarily black with some earthy colors as well. I want to look witchy. I want to look like I can walk into the room and cast a spell on you with a look, and I think that look is partially accomplished with long, floor-length gypsy skirts that flow nicely and drag when I go down stairs. I like looking like I could be dressed for Halloween on any day of the year, whether it’s Christmas, my birthday, or actually Halloween (although, naturally, I like to go all out with a costume for Halloween).

                Recently, I used my husband’s detail trimmers on my eyebrows without the guard. I had no idea there was a guard to prevent cutting hairs too short, and ended up nearly shaving my eyebrows off completely. The very next day, I bought an eyebrow pencil and some red lip color since I didn’t have a good one. The eyebrow pencil is dark brown but looks black, and I drew my eyebrows on and took a selfie, which I uploaded to Facebook and subsequently received more likes than I’ve ever received on any of my posts! I also got multiple comments from my guy-friends to the tune of “Wow”, like I’m really sexy and they never noticed, and the way I had my makeup that day really accentuated my look. I looked like a freaking vamp. It was amazing.

                Naturally, because I was truly pleased with it for myself, Mema simply couldn’t approve. She thought my brows were too dark with the pencil, that I’d pressed down too hard or something. The only problem I had with my drawn-on brows was that I’d drawn my right brow thicker than my left. I did much better the next day.

                So, now is the time for the ultimate point of this post.

                I have realized that I no longer care what my family thinks. I don’t give a shit if they’re impressed by what I’m doing or if they approve of my decisions, I’m going to live my life the way I want to so that I’m happy. I married a man who wants nothing more than to make me happy the way I want to be—not in a way that he approves of—because he loves me for who I am and nothing less. So, Mema thinks my brows were too dark and unnatural? Great! I’ll draw them darker and less natural next time! I’ll keep my brows nearly-completely-shaved so that I keep drawing my brows on and I might just wax them off completely to experiment with brow looks! Who knows? It’ll be fun! So, Mema doesn’t like corsets or doesn’t approve of me wearing them? I don’t care! I’ve always wanted to wear corsets and I finally have a couple of them! I’m going to wear them until they freaking break! So, my dad thinks it’s unwise of me to move into an apartment with my best friend? I don’t really care, because I’ve given it an awful lot of thought, talked a lot about it with her, her boyfriend, and my husband, and we’ve decided that it is the best decision for where we currently are in our lives.

                I’m done trying to mold myself into someone or something I’m not just to please my family. I am who I am and if they really can’t accept that, then they can see a lot less of me in the years to come. I’m grateful for everything they have done for me that has helped me in my life—I truly am—but I will no longer lie down and try changing myself to be who they want me to be, nor will I continue living so cautiously that I never take a chance to do what I’m really interested in. I’m going to leap into real estate investment while taking my medical billing specialist course and everything is going to be fucking fantastic, even if it takes a couple of years to get there.

The Happiest Baby

                I’d have titled this entry, “The Happiest Baby on the Block,” but that’s probably a registered trademark, as it’s a DVD of tips and tricks to calm a fussy baby. I gave birth to my daughter, Persephone Anne, on August 11^th—about a month ago, now—and from the very start she has been an absolutely wonderful baby. She doesn’t fuss much, and when she does, she’s very easy to soothe. This entry is the story of having the baby and how I’m doing a month later with her.

                I was worried from the moment I found out I was pregnant and it was too late to terminate that I would end up with postpartum depression after birth. Deep down inside, I knew with a morbid certainty that the mental illness would rear its ugly, tar-black face and there would be no avoiding it. What I didn’t know was how soon it would show up. After all, baby blues are normal and postpartum depression usually kicks in a little later, right? That’s what I’d heard and gathered from all the research I’d done prior to having my baby.

                The afternoon I broke my ankle, I went to the hospital and was in the ER for many hours before moving up to the Labor & Delivery Triage to be monitored. Ultimately, the hospital staff decided to induce my labor and it was decided that I would have my baby. I mentioned this in my last entry, which detailed how I broke my ankle. I was given an epidural and labor didn’t last too long, really. I’d say it didn’t last more than twelve hours, but I don’t think that’s quite accurate, so I’ll say it didn’t last longer than six hours after the nurse broke my water. I didn’t feel it until the baby started moving out—and then she was pressing hard against my right hip and it felt like the hip would split open!

                It was a smooth delivery. My baby was, and still is, completely beautiful and I received a few stitches to aid recovery from a small tear the baby caused. We were later moved, a few hours later, to a different room, where we were to stay for about 48 hours while they monitored the baby and me. Everything was going well…until maybe 24 hours later.

                From the moment I started actively pushing the baby out of my body (a little before that, actually), up to the next night, I got no sleep at all. I might have napped a couple of hours, but it was certainly nothing significant. On top of that, I was beginning to have difficulties breastfeeding. Persephone, my new daughter, wouldn’t take enough of my nipple into her mouth for a proper latch, which left both of my nipples blistered and feeling pinched. Come Tuesday night, I couldn’t latch her on for the pain and I couldn’t manage to make the nipple guard stay on a nipple for her to eat that way.

                With my broken and sprained ankles inhibiting my movement, the pain from childbirth, and the pain in my nipples all piled on top of a baby screaming from hunger, I couldn’t handle it anymore and I was sobbing along with my newborn. Words came out of my mouth and I don’t remember all of them, but among them were things like, “I’m sorry, but you’re hurting me!” and “Why are you crying?!” Looking back, the second quote looks completely wrong; I knew exactly why she was crying and I was feeling completely inadequate and useless with the pain in my nipples rendering feeding her impossible.

                Multiple nurses came in during this episode and tried talking to me. Randy took the baby to another room and a nurse tried talking to me—continuously saying my name wrong, pronouncing it like uh-leash-uh instead of the correct uh-leash-ee-uh. I couldn’t handle it the third time she said it and I yelled at her, “It’s Aleashia!” She promptly got up and walked out of the room. I was later given a breast pump to express enough milk for Randy to feed the baby while I got some sleep; then, I was provided some Benadryl to assist with the actual sleeping.

                When I woke up, I didn’t feel much better, but I’d gotten a few hours of sleep. I immediately wondered where my baby was and pressed the nurse call button to ask. A few minutes later, Randy came in with her and said that all was well. I was still relatively miserable, but it was good to know the baby was doing well.

                It wasn’t long after that—the next day, maybe—that I was getting everything situated to feed Persephone. I moved to get my blanket out of the way so that I could position her properly to feed when all of a sudden she flipped over and off the bed—landing on the floor. It was so sudden, I immediately had Randy call the nurses in. The baby hadn’t landed on her head; she’d landed on her side, maybe her shoulder, but I was worried that she might have hit her head.

                The next thing I knew, we were still in the hospital long after we should have gone home and when we asked what was going on, we found out that the pediatrician had called Child Protective Services.

                Ultimately—long story short—CPS closed our case the day we went in to talk to them. The baby is safe.

                Now, for the best part of this entry: The fact that I have the happiest baby I’ve ever known. Persephone isn’t particularly fussy, but when she fusses, it’s usually really easy to find the problem and fix it. Most of the time, she wants my nipple; popping one in her mouth will calm her down immediately. Every parent knows the checklist: Is the baby hungry? Does the baby need a diaper change? Is the baby hot or cold? Is the baby bored? Does the baby just need to cry for a while? Does the baby need to burp? There’s more to it, though. If you go through the entire checklist and the baby is neither hot nor cold, nor bored, nor hungry, nor dirty, nor gassy, and the baby continues to cry, there are ways to easily calm the baby.

                In the film, The Happiest Baby on the Block, the man I will call the Baby Whisperer has what he calls the five S’s: Swaddle, Side/Stomach, Swing, Shushing, and Sucking. When Persephone continues crying for no reason, I swaddle her. It almost never works by itself, so I put her on her side and begin swinging her. Usually, this is enough to calm her down; other times, I have to shush her on top of it. Other times, I have to pop a pacifier in her mouth on top of it all and simply work with her for a few minutes, but ultimately, the five S’s work wonders. I have an extremely happy baby, ultimately, even though these past couple of days have been a bit more difficult than usual.

                I love my daughter so much more than I thought possible.