To a new year and to new beginnings

To a new year and to new beginnings- January 5, 2012

Well, where to start! It's been a long time (a whole month) since my last post but has it ever been a busy month!

December started off great. My practicum was going perfectly, my husband had a couple of courses scheduled and the baby and I were both doing just fine. Then, one day, very early in the month, I ended up taking a little trip to the ER. After spending a night at the hospital, I was put on a week of bed/couch rest, which meant I lost a week of my practicum. Then exactly seven days after that first hospital trip, I ended up there again.  My husband had just flown to Ontario for a course the day I went in and was on a plane back to Alberta the next morning. After five days of about a hundred tests, the doctors decided I was fine, the baby was fine and I was allowed to go home. And that was officially the end of my practicum. Thankfully though, the university is allowing me to finish the last three weeks of it in the spring, after the baby is born, so I will still get to graduate sometime in 2012 (and what a relief that is!!).

Christmas came not too long after I got out of the hospital. My husband and I were lucky enough to have some family come out to visit. We saw my father while I was in the hospital and my mother and step-father visited for a week over the holidays. My uncle visited on Boxing Day for turkey dinner as well. My husband's family was definitely missed this year but we will see them all soon. This was the first time either of us had seen family (other than each other) for Christmas in a few years. Having so many family members around really reminded my of what the season is all about. I thought a lot about how lucky we were this year to actually get to spend a holiday together. We came too close to it not being able to happen.

It's hard to believe that we are already in 2012. I feel like I blinked and missed all of December because of how chaotic the whole month was. I remember, when I first started my practicum in October, thinking how far away the holidays were and how time just seemed to be going so slow. And now Christmas has come and gone, December is over and we have begun another new year.
But what a year we have to look forward to! 2012 is going to be the year for big changes for my husband and I. Back in November, my husband got THE call saying that he's being posted to a new base, but also to (what I think is) his dream job. Without getting into too much detail, he's going to be working with the helicopter that he loves and is going to get to teach the new engineers. I honestly could not be more proud of him and what he's accomplished in his work. We are both extremely excited for this new posting and all of the new adventures this move will take us on.

While we're waiting to get our dates to go look for a new house and find out exactly when we're moving, I get to finish up my last (ever!) university course and finish the last few weeks of teaching. I can't even begin to tell you how thrilled I am that this degree is almost over! With all of the ups and downs I've had, during both degrees really, between my own medical/health issues, deployments and family situations, a big part of me is surprised that I have stuck with it and am just about done. I sometimes wonder just how crazy I have to be to keep going back. But I'm not the kind of person who will willingly back down or quit something so I guess it makes sense that I'm still at it. I'm looking forward to the day that I can hang this degree on the wall next to my first one. It's been a long time coming.

The biggest change of all for us this year is definitely becoming first time parents. Sometimes it seems like it was yesterday that I told my husband I was pregnant but in just seven weeks we will actually be meeting our baby. We're both getting a bit impatient though, waiting to find out if it's a girl or a boy, what he/she will look like, what kind of personality he/she will have, etc. It's all so exciting though and I think a lot of the impatience we feel is really the anticipation of this next step in our lives.

I have to say though, for me, there's a bit of a bittersweet side to all of this. Literally all of my dreams are coming true this year (starting on my wedding day in 2010 actually) but I can't help but feel a bit uneasy. My dream has always been to have a wonderful husband (and I have the best one a girl could ever hope for!), to be a mother (which happens soon) and to have a job as a teacher. And even though I am going to graduate this year, I won't be working. Something I never anticipated or wanted for myself was to be a stay-at-home wife or mother. I've always been the type of person who works more than one job or who has more than one thing going on (like school and work). But I've always managed to balance my work time and my home time. And I've always said that when I have kids, I will still go to work. Unfortunately this year, with a young infant and a husband away on courses, it just doesn't make sense for me to go to work. I'm looking forward to having the time to spend with my child but I'm really nervous about being home. Motherhood honestly feels like it will be easier than staying home.As scary as it all is, I am going to be open-minded about it all and really make the best of the experience. And when the baby is older and my husband's courses slow down a bit, I'll go back to work.

For now though, I am going to put as much energy as I can into getting ahead in my course, making sure the house is ready for a baby and just enjoying the time I have to spend with my husband, before it's not just the two of us anymore. This really is going to be a wonderful, crazy year but I'm ready for it!