Deployment: Half Way Through

So today marks the half way point. Three months out of six. Has it gone quickly? Nope. Does it seem like the end is in sight? Nope. Do we miss him any less than we did in the first few days and weeks? Nope. But, have we settled into a routine? I guess so.

Well, when we were still down on the South Cost of England we had settled into some sort of normality without him. I went to work every day. Little I went to nursery. We had our couple hours together with play time and the bed time routine each evening. I filled up the rest of the evening with lots of blog and YouTube work and organising ourselves for life with the new baby. Weekends were filled with play dates, friends and fun. Basically just anything to fill the time and keep insanely busy so we didn’t notice the big husband and dada shaped hole in our lives, as much.

The thing is, I’m now eight months pregnant and have moved back to my parents now that I’m on maternity leave. We packed up the car, shipped off four boxes and arrived in the North East of Scotland a couple weeks ago. This means any sort of routine or normality we had going on down South has been shaken up again. But in a good way.

It’s so good to be around my family. It’s so good to not spent nights alone. It’s so good to know that Little I will be in safe hands if I go into labour early. It’s so good to have people to speak to each day about what’s going on with the pregnancy and how I feel about missing him. It’s so good to just have support around us from people we love. But it’s different. I’m really heavily pregnant now. I’m tired. I don’t have Little I at nursery full time. Organising everything for a new baby on your own is hard work. And I don’t miss him any less.

Communication with the ship is pretty rubbish at the moment and we don’t know whether they’re coming or going in terms of when they’re sailing etc but heyho what can you do! We take the phone signal and messages whenever we can get them and when we don’t have that, we hope for emails and the one phone call a night (even with all it’s delays and robotic sounds).

I am terrified of going into labour and giving birth without him but at least I know once baby is here, we’ll get him back at some point for two weeks. That’s better than nothing. We couldn’t fly out to see him in the crew’s stand down time, because I was too pregnant, so this is our chance to be together, albeit briefly, before he carries on with the last couple months of this deployment.

I am actually dreading saying goodbye next time even more than I dreaded the original goodbye. Last time I was a little naive in relation to how it would affect Little I. This time I have a bit more insight on how she’s going to react and it breaks my heart to even think about it already. For her to think she’s got her dada back and then him be gone again in a matter of days and weeks. It makes me want to cry just writing it down.

At least we’ll have my family around us this time. And at least we’ll be on the proper countdown to homecoming then.

It will be the best Christmas ever.

We miss you Robert and are trying our best to stay strong.

Love you x