On June 18, 2016, I woke up with a smile on my face. By the end of the day, we would be moving into our brand-new home. I hopped out of bed and got ready to for our Key Ceremony. Even Paige being five months pregnant didn’t seem to slow the skip in her step. We met the police a few miles down the road from our new home and followed a motorcade and the Auburn mascot, Aubie, in a convertible to our home site. As soon as we turned onto our road, we could see the entire street was lined with people cheering and waving American flags. Paige and I walked down to the bottom of the driveway, where the whole town had been asked to join us. We sang the national anthem and listened to a great keynote speech from the executive director of Homes for Our Troops, Bill Ivey. Dr. David Crumbley, who began the wound care program at Walter Reed and now worked at the Auburn School of Nursing, spoke, and our friend and fellow Walter Reed alumnus Andrew Smith spoke on the importance of a handicap-accessible home. Then, we had a chance to speak. My eyes were already watering, but then there was a freak dust storm that blew debris into both of my eyes and I could not stop crying. My thoughts and emotions were racing, but my most prevalent thought was the fact that I was going to own this home.
Military people know nothing is ever ours. It all belongs to the government, and it is all temporary. This place would have my name on the deed, and I will not pay a cent for it. We had searched far and wide for a home that we could live in that would be safe and meet my needs, and it did not exist. Nowhere can you find a freestanding home that is wheelchair friendly. Homes with handicap accessibility never start that way; typical homes are torn apart and repurposed to fit and store adaptive equipment. Our home had been custom made to fit our needs. This home had automatic doors, square layouts for every bathroom, a roll-in shower, bidet toilets, roll-under countertops, and pull-down shelves for cabinets I couldn’t reach. Paige would never have to worry about me slipping trying to get myself out of the tub or climbing on our kitchen counters like I used to in our old apartment. Even if we had doubled our income, Paige and I couldn’t afford a custom house like the one that we were walking up to. As I stood to speak and looked out into the crowd, I felt all the air leave my chest.
Suddenly I was crying uncontrollably. Right before starting my thank-you speech, I caught sight of two of my Earthpig brothers, Brent Buffington and Tony Ayalla, sitting in the crowd. I think all I managed was “Thank you.” I was so blown away by the moment: the whole town in our driveway, a brand-new home waiting for us, two of my deployment buddies in the crowd, my two-year-old drooling over Aubie, and a wiggly baby in Paige’s belly. To top it all off, Bill Ham, the mayor of the City of Auburn, declared June 18, 2016, Josh and Paige Wetzel Day. I composed myself enough to raise the flag in front of our home; our pastor, Wren Aaron, said a prayer; and then we crossed the threshold of our home for the first time. For the rest of the day, I was the definition of giddy. I just couldn’t believe what God had done. This point was a defining moment for Paige and me—it put all bad days behind us and gave us great perspective on where we’d come and what a great future we had in front of us now.
PAIGE
My belly continued to grow, but I was thankful not to be having a baby in the heat of the summer. My new home and my October 8 due date put nesting into hyperdrive. It’s amazing how quickly your body goes into pregnancy mode the second time around! This pregnancy was so different than the first, and not just physically. The whole experience was completely different. After my experience giving birth at Walter Reed, the questions I asked my civilian doctor earned me strange looks. In fact, when I went to check out after each appointment, the receptionist would ask who I needed to make my next appointment with and I would say, “Oh, whoever is available,” not realizing they were just confirming that I was one of the expectant mothers assigned to a doctor in their practice. After seeing the same doctor three times in a row, I asked, “So, is it your plan to actually deliver this baby?”
My doctor got this weird look on her
