In the first fourteen weeks, I experienced food poisoning and spot bleeding and had the flu so bad that my sister had to drive us from Alabama back up to Walter Reed Medical Center after we visited home for Christmas. In all of these instances, many fellow pregnant women might have called their doctor. But I didn’t have one. There was no one to call. The maternity ward had office hours when someone sat by a phone and answered basic questions. The next alternative was the emergency room. I was going to have a baby at an amputee hospital. Nothing there was set up for me like there would be at regular, civilian hospitals—where regular people went with normal hospital needs, like, you know, having a baby. Nonetheless, our baby continued to grow like normal.
During my pregnancy, I began to reflect on the oddity of my time at Walter Reed Medical Center. Someday, our life here would end, either because Josh finally retired or they kicked us out. We now had Auburn, Alabama, as the location for our civilian life, so we at least had a backdrop for where our child’s life would take shape. Our life in Tacoma had officially come to a close. All of our things were in storage as we waited to see when this chapter would end. Other caregivers around me seemed like they were soaking up the experience of Walter Reed in equal but opposite ways. Some caregivers were really being trailblazers for their spouses or kids. They were pursuing opportunities to help their veteran learn things like adaptive sports or using accessible equipment to gain independence, even pushing for government reform to make life better for post-combat vets. Others seemed to love living a life free of rent, cooking responsibilities, and only coming out of their room to sign up for a cool trip. We were in no position to judge either group. All I knew was that neither Josh nor I could risk getting away from the things that made us successful if we wanted to get out of this place. Even in sickness, fatigue, soreness, and conflict, we still had to show up for our responsibilities. My group of friends grew to be people who wanted the same thing. I had gotten to know Danielle Kelly (the one who came to our room with the cupcakes) and Lacy Reichenbach under the same conditions: They wanted the highest level of independence for their husbands and from Walter Reed. I wouldn’t know Lacy if I had not met her son, Landon, first. Landon was playing Navy SEAL one day in physical therapy with a fake M-4 and whacked me with a pillow for sitting on the table he was using to shoot all the Charlies. His dad, Bo, a real SEAL, just facepalmed and laughed the way parents have to sometimes when their kid does something embarrassing. Landon was the oldest of the kids in our friend group at Walter Reed and moved to the hospital at four years old. Lacy was somehow a wife, caregiver, and mom to a little kid who didn’t understand much of what went on around him but was old enough to grasp bits and pieces. Yet, she created an environment where Landon was part of his dad’s recovery. She taught Landon how to be helpful when Bo needed something but also let him ride a scooter down the hallways. Bo was still severely injured, and Landon was still a little kid, but somehow Lacy created a world that fit them both.
Landon was about to have a life outside of Walter Reed that his parents were trying to figure out. He would have to start kindergarten soon. Would that happen here or back in their home state of Montana? Then there were other kids like Easton Mullee, who had only ever known Walter Reed. Kelsey and Travis Mills’s daughter, Chloe, was only six months old when Travis was injured. Would she live here long enough to have memories of this place? The pace of the VA and Josh staying consistently healthy were the unpredictable elements that determined when we could start the next chapter. Except this baby was still coming, no matter when the other things happened. I wasn’t really sure how I would be a parent in either scenario. I could hardly picture myself as someone’s mother. But one thing I was sure of: I had a village that would help me. The wives of Walter Reed would add one more kid to the babysitting rotation. We had all taken turns playing with Chloe, Easton, and Landon while their parents went to appointments, surgeries, or dinner by themselves. In fact, they were so used to us that I think the hospital staff was confused about who each child belonged to. I wouldn’t have grandparents or aunts and uncles close, but even if I did, there
