But Why?

So lets see... lots of things to explain and introduce.

Firstly- my name... EM2 Stewart's Wife. Why? Because I have always identified myself as being his wife, because I like being called "Mrs Stewart", because while, yes, my husband wont always be EM2 Stewart (which he always points out but I think that's just because he can't wait until he isn't EM2 Stewart anymore!) I am proud that he is, has been, and (some day) will have been that guy who sacrificed so much to get us started off on the right foot. But we'll talk more about that later.

Now- the blog title... Operation Stewart Family. Why? Because our road to starting a family has been like a carefully executed military operation. Complete with plans, training, testing, invasions, bombings, defeat and finally success! Our original "plan" included waiting until Mr Stewart was out of the Navy. Which meant that Mr would be 24 and I (Mrs) would be 23. Still young right? BUT little ol' me got a job at a daycare and COULD NOT wait til then! So the new "plan" meant trying to conceive (TTC) right then and there when Mr was 19 and I was 18! Really young huh?! But here I am at nearly 23 now and only just now have we finally become parents! We'll talk about the road to get here later.

Thirdly- Who am I? Well you already know that I am the wife of EM2 Stewart (which in case you weren't Navy savvy that means Electrician's Mate second class, oh and did I mention he is a Nuke? That means he is an Electrician who works on the nuclear reactor... on a submarine to be more specific! This also means that he is the first one on - first one off the boat... but enough about him for now!) and you know that I am an almost 23 year old mother. But what you may not know is that I met Mr way back in 9th grade and that same year he gave me a silver amethyst ring and said, "someday I am going to marry you". You also might not know that 3 years later when he graduated boot camp he asked me officially. And that 2 months later we eloped in front of a fireplace at the justice of the peace's (who just so happened to be the old mayor of Virginia Beach) house while his wife stood in as our "witness". And unless you followed me on I-am-pregnant.com, you probably don't know that for almost 4 years Mr and I struggled to become Mr, Baby, and I. We dealt with irregular cycles, months of TTC to no avail, (2) 6 month deployments and countless underways, 4 miscarriages, 2 D&Cs, doctors with horrible bedside manners, an HSG, hysteroscopy, God only KNOWS how many viles of blood!, and even a very awkward semen analysis complete with a crunchy doctor paper covered sofa!! Then we soldiered through meds, fear, excitement and even a little physical therapy, but it was all worth it! Now I am a MOM... wow... and not just any mom but a semi paranoid, breastfeeding, baby wearing, cloth diapering, stay at home mom!

And lastly, Why a blog? Well this one is easy... I have always kept a journal usually on paper but so often the book is lost so I resorted to computer journaling. During much of the combat of "Operation Stewart Family" I was a member of a site called I-am-pregnant.com (IAP as my friends and I call it). I found it while looking for a due date calculator when I got my first positive pregnancy test (aka BFP for those who are forum savvy) I joined the site and tracked my progress, failures and everything in between on there. I made many friends on there... most of whom I still talk to on a daily basis! Well, most of the friends I found on there and even I myself do not use the site like we used to. I had a blog on there and since I do not use the site that often anymore I wanted a new place to track all the wonders of motherhood and joys that being a part of this family brings me! I'd like to transfer my old IAP blogs onto here so I don't lose them but I think I have about 70 blogs on there and I don't know how much non-IAP people will want to read all the details... but we will see.

So that's it. I am EM2 Stewart's Wife. I am a mother. (FINALLY!) and this is my blog. Follow it if you want or don't I don't care... I am going to write it anyway!