are you kidding me?

"Are you kidding me?"  These words have come out of my mouth and gone through my head a lot the last 24 hours.

Tonight I learned that my dear friend Suzie gave birth to a beautiful baby boy this morning.  Two hours before her husband got home from his deployment.  TWO hours.  Her water broke last night. He was out of the desert and in Germany on his way home when it happened but had no way of getting here on time.  TWO hours.  He never got to see his glowing pregnant wife or feel the baby kick in her tummy.  She had no family with her during delivery (which she did sans any painkillers by the way. . .  she worked with a doula).  I'm so happy that the baby is healthy, but am so disappointed that Jason missed out on the entire pregnancy AND the birth by 120 minutes after 9 months of hoping they could be together for the event.  Are you kidding me?


Her last facebook update last night was:  

Suzie Walker smiles about 1) friends who mow your lawn for you when your man is away, 2) buying bread which will not expire until after said man has returned, and 3) babies who stay in utero until daddy's return.on Wednesday

Ironic, huh?

Pretty massive disappointment on the assignment front for Philip and Joy.  No, we didn't get orders to some hideous base in the armpit of Texas or the arctic cold and nothingness of North Dakota.  However, Philip did get to see the list of job options and nothing is looking too promising for being compatible with school.  Not just GWU.  We're talking school AT ALL.  Are you kidding me?

I had been preparing myself for no DC options and the possibility of having to settle for a Plan B school.  In addition to 3 DC area bases that would have worked there were about 5 more other bases that would have had school options for me to start in January.  Of the 70 jobs Philip may be given ONE of them is at any of those bases. . . and it's not looking likely that he's eligible for that job.  Are you kidding me?

Even more maddening, there are several jobs at a base close to a school I had looked long and hard at (but STUPIDLY didn't apply to even though I thought the program was better than GWU as I didn't think we'd have any shot of going to that one base and thought that at least with DC there were 3 base options to choose from).  It would have been an amazing program, but now even if we would be stationed there it wouldn't work for me to start fall 2011 because we'd have to move again half way through the program.  Are you kidding me?

Philip talked to the guy in charge of issuing assignments today and was pretty much told, "don't bother me."  That's a grrrrrreat sign. *note the sarcasm*

It's heartbreaking.  And hard.  Really really really hard.  To wait and to try to communicate with my spouse about while he is in a combat zone in another country.  I DON'T want him to get out of the AF for my career.  No part of me would be comfortable with that.  I DON'T want him to have to volunteer to spend a year in Korea starting this winter to guarantee that our follow-on assignment would be DC.  I'm SCARED to get to our next base and take the really big chance that he'll actually be released by his careerfield and accepted by the AF program to go to law school so that we could both start school together in 2011.  I'm SCARED to wait to start school much longer because I'm really not feeling comfortable with the idea of starting kids before getting most of my school done and putting school off means that my biological clock will continue to tick (I know I'm young yadda yadda. . . but I don't want to have to wait until I'm 31 or 32 to start trying to have our first baby in case there are problems because I'm aware that the reality is that fertility peaks at 26 and starts to really drop after 30).  It probably all sounds silly, but it's where I'm right now.

My heart is heavy.  I'm scared.  I'm anxious.  I feel alone.  I'm frustrated.  I'm trying to cling to the only thing I can in this situation:  Christ.  I know that when God says "no" it is so that He can say "yes" to something better, but resting in that is feeling really difficult right now.  I don't think that I've had a stretch/test of faith this massive since Philip and I broke up abruptly out of the blue November of my senior year in college.  I don't know what to do with all of this.  I'm worried about being back in this place of the unknown for a three more months until we have orders in hand.

Perhaps God is going to do exactly what He did with my admission:  make it CLEAR that it is by Him and Him ALONE that this works out.  But maybe not. . .   Maybe He wants to teach me something through one of the biggest disappointments of my life to date. . .  This is what I fear, but this is what I must prepare for.