any military spouses out there?

[nmprice09]

Have any of you had to go thru birth with out your husband? What did you do to help with your husband not being there?

My husband is on a deployment right now and I'm due almost in the middle of his deployment. There have been a lot of fathers being told no leave for the birth. So I just have this feeling that he will be told no too. We have 2 already, but they were born before he enlisted and he was there for the birth's. I'm trying to not get upset at the thought that my husband may not be here for the birth of our child, but I am just a little. Thankfully our older 2 help keep me busy and my mind off it for the most part. Just could use some advice of some moms that have already went thru this.

[nmprice09]

Luckily my mom is coming to visit and my brother is stationed at the same base (but not on deployment) I have a couple friends here. I mainly keep to myself because I don't want to deal with the drama that some of the wives have. It's not really about not having any support or help during the delivery. It's this is a big moment in our lives and I don't want him to miss it, I want to share it with him. When we got married I never thought we would be apart for this (don't get me wrong our love our military life) so when big things come up I'm sad when he has to miss it. He missed our (for now) youngest first birthday. I video chated during the party but it wasn't the same as him being there.

[Leabellallee]

I'm not a military spouse but I was a military kid and have 4 siblings. My mom had 2 kids without our dad being there. Once he was in the Panama Canal and the other he was in Kuwait. I remember my youngest sisters birth better because I was 12 at the time. My mom had tons of friends on base and they all came to the hospital and visited, some even stayed with her in delivery. For the first few weeks they helped take us to our after school activities and brought us dinner. One friend even dropped all the school aged kids off a full lunch box every morning so my mom didn't have to pack it. I'm
Sure my mom had moments of despair but she never let us see it.  She delegated house chores to the kids and if anyone offered her help with Anything she accepted it, even she really didn't particularly like the person offering help. Oh, and we always took a ton of pictures and then we would have them developed (do they even develop pics now?! Lol) and make "books" for our dad and send them so he would see how we were doing. My mom sewed my dad a handkerchief with scraps of all the kids clothes when he would deploy or tdy so he'd have something of ours to be with him. Sounds corny but as a kid I loved donating a shirt, once a dance costume, to add to one.  Honestly, you'll probably get the most support from a wives group or if you live on base I'm sure your neighbors will offer support. They know it could be them giving birth alone next.