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Pregnant Military Wives

When Dad Is Deployed While Expecting

By Mark Stackpole

We all have to make sacrifices. From parents to politicians, we have often received this pronouncement during difficult times. Though it offers little emotional comfort, it does provide some perspective on the difficult decisions that face us every day.

No families are being asked to risk greater sacrifices than the military ones who may be asked to send loved ones off to foreign lands and possibly war zones, deployed in accordance with their responsibilities as members of the U.S. military. Our military personnel and the people they leave behind are brave in their protection of both the homeland and the homefront. Not everyone who serves their country does so as a soldier, sailor or marine. Many are not even members of the military at all – and a few of them haven't even been born yet.

When Megan Hughes of Fort Hood, Texas, began having strong, hard contractions in the middle of the night, she was understandably anxious. When they increased in frequency and intensity, she decided that she needed to get to the hospital. Unlike many expectant mothers, however, she did not wake her husband to drive her; with her contractions two minutes apart, she drove herself the eight blocks to the emergency room. Eventually, the doctors and nurses determined that Hughes was not in preterm labor and released her the next day.

And why couldn't she wake her husband that night? Because he was stationed in Korea at the time, as he had been for much of her pregnancy. Since Hughes did not give birth that fateful night, her husband was able to return for their daughter's birth, stay for 16 days and then leave again for four months.

Now, a few years later, Hughes is pregnant again and her husband has been around to help. However, somewhere around her 8th month, he will be deployed again, this time missing the birth of his son. Although he has some R&R that he could use, the family decided not to have him use his leave so close to the beginning of his deployment, as it would make for a very long stretch of time without him. His son will be a year old before he gets to meet his father.

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