Good News....Bad News....Dilemma

[bvilchez]

Good news first...

My wife and I found out today that our new addition headed to the family in October is going to be a girl!!! We're excited and can't wait for her arrival. We have a 1 1/2 year old boy, AJ, who will be her bodyguard as she gets older so I need to start taking him to the range with me.

Bad news.....

For those that don't know I'm an Active Duty Marine. I know without a doubt in my mind that I'm going to deploy. Well today I find out that it might be sooner than later. Looks like a tasker came down for the end of October to deploy for a year....and you guessed it, my name was thrown in the hat and has a high probability of getting picked. More like a 99% chance.

A little history though. I missed the birth of my first child by a month when I was in Iraq last time and came to hold him for the first time at 6 months of age. It destroyed me inside missing the first 6 months of his life and not being there for my wife when I knew she needed me. I felt like I left my family abandoned in a time of need. I missed his first Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's as a family. My wife is very caring and understanding but I know deep down she wishes I was there to help her....and I wished I was there as well.

Now our little girl is due Oct 3. As stated earlier this deployment is scheduled to go sometime after her birth so at least I'll be here for that. But an entire year?!?!?! I can not bear the idea of doing that to my wife and kids....especially my wife! Sure the kids will be young and not affect them AS MUCH (my son will be a little over 2 at that point, he'll remember something). But leaving my wife to deal with 2 kids, a newborn and a toddler, for an entire year. Not only to miss my little girl's 1st Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's as a family again, her 1st steps, and all the other holidays and anniversaries.

Dilemma.....

Only positive thing is that I can take my name out of the hat for now. But that leaves me in the running for later on down the road though.

So my questions to you all are as follows:

1. Do I take my name out of the hat now and stay with my family this year? It leaves me open for upcoming deployments down the line when the kids will be older but then they'll remember Daddy leaving.

2. Do I go and deploy having my wife to fend for herself for the year with the kids and the house? If I do this I will not have go anywhere for about 2-3 year when I return.

Sorry it was a long post but hopefully you all can see my headache in this situation.

/rant off
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