Insight Into My Worklife

In case anyone is interested in knowing a little bit of the mysticism surrounding me at work, I wanted to share this with you.  I don't talk about work very often but when I had to write about a difficult challenge I had faced I ended up resorting to one of many projects I have worked on in the past. Let me know some of your challenging situations if you are open to share, whether work related or not.  Here is one of mine:

As a contractor working on a military education and training base I was tasked with being the Subject Matter Expert (SME) for the main Application Exercise (APEX) for the students. This exercise tests the previously learned skills of the students to ensure that they have actually learned what they needed to out of the 6 month training course to go out into the operational Air Force.  During this time I was asked to combine a previous 3 Day Exercise with a 6 day exercise, turning it into a 9 day exercise that was synchronized and flowed easily, as well as to update the information from static dates of 2008 to static dates of 2011.  Although both exercises featured the same countries in play they were both created by different people and taken from different sources using various dates.  During initial creation they were intended to be separate stand-alone exercises.  This was a massive task that was assigned solely to me intended to be done with the combination of multiple companies and several people.  Due to the reassessment of personnel I ended up doing the majority of the work single-handedly on behalf of the company I worked for.  To add onto the massive project there was a timeline of 3-6 months in order to have the project completed on time for the re-write of the course that I was supporting as all material had to be completed at the same time for it to be approved and signed off on by the military.  The end result was 1042 pieces of message traffic for a day and night shift as well as a plethora of products (imagery, tracking products, PowerPoint briefings, etc.)  I can also throw in the fact that I was in my 2^nd and 3^rd trimester of my pregnancy with my first child as a single mother during this time.  Needless to say this was a daunting task, but it was one that I welcomed with open arms.  I love nothing more than to be faced with a challenge that I can shape into the best work I can accomplish.  Initially I had to start with figuring out what needed to be included in this project, the resources that I could utilize (as this was a classified exercise and not all resources are readily available) and the timeline that I had to work with.  I worked first on scrubbing (going through and seeing what was still relevant, what needed deleting, what needed changing) the message traffic.  After this I had to make personal contact with resources (personnel and websites) around the military that had worked with similar information and countries.  I had to use quite a combination of finesse and effective communication/people skills over the phone, and through email to get pointed in the right direction.  This was ongoing for many months to get the full range resources and the knowledge that was needed.  I had to come up with the best time management and most effective method of accomplishing all of these things.  Halfway through the project my timeline was cut from having 6 months remaining, to 3 months remaining.  I put in many overtime hours and was able to get all of the products including plotting over a thousand forces on Falconview (a computer based map of the military forces in play).  I had to constantly keep up communication between companies involved to ensure that both sides were synchronized in timing of events, visualization and messages that were dependent upon one another.  During this time I created many new products, still utilized years later, to help any teaching instructors to understand the exercise, and to be able to effectively teach the exercise with the best result of learning and knowledge absorption for the students during the hardest tasks they will face yet in the course.  Although many of my solutions to this problem took on a creative tone, it wasn’t until most of the time consuming work was done that I came up with the best solution yet.  My most creative solution to this monumental task was to take all of the work that I had previously accomplished and put myself in the shoes of the student, to try to envision myself as the audience that would be presented with and tested on this material and see it from their eyes.  I wanted this exercise which had now become my baby to be the most effective and most beneficial 9 days that they could be faced with at the end of their training.  I went through the exercise and acted as though I was in charge of all of the groups at once (during a normal class the students are broken up into 5-6 separate groups to track different aspects of the military forces (Air, Ground, Navy, Defensive Missiles, Special Ops/Ballistic Missiles).  I went through all of the visualizations; I read through each piece of message traffic (multiple times) and I acted as though I was one of the students.  I took each of these groups and I created student products of PowerPoint briefing to track the forces and to brief to the instructors, I moved the forces along with the traffic to ensure that force structure and amounts were adding up to where they should.  I had to track along and ensure that events would follow likely TTP (Tactics, Techniques and Procedures) for my target countries.   I had to be sure that this exercise was as realistic as possible given the static dates that were chosen.  From this creative solution I caught multiple minute force structure and number discrepancies that would not have been as clear otherwise.  In so doing, I was able to save credibility of the exercise when it came to the scrutiny of an actual running class as well as many man hours searching through for these discrepancies after the fact.   This also allowed me to ensure that I could confidently hand over this finished product to the military for validation and official release as an exercise that would be utilized according the military training standards across the Air Force.  I was also able to come up with number and force structure cheat sheets for the instructors to utilize for the beginning and end of each exercise day so that the instructors were able to adequately gauge the status of their students’ ability to keep track of what was going on in the exercise and better assess their finalized briefings.

Pregnant me about a month before my son was born

Lessons Motherhood has Taught Me

In case you are interested in getting a sneak peak into some of the lessons I have had to learn as a single mother, I wanted to share this with you.  Of course there are millions of tiny little lessons and this just touches upon the very tip of it, I thought it might be nice to hear some of your lessons as well.

Within the first month of me going from full-time military to a civilian contractor in support of the military, I surprisingly discovered that I was pregnant.  From that moment on, I knew that to go through with this meant that I would be doing it completely on my own.  At the time I wasn’t sure how this was going to work with my job and with being in the middle of gearing up for a house move.  I admittedly knew very little about being a mother and the costs entailed and decided that I needed to make some life altering choices to make this work for me.  I decided to go with a much lesser house to have a lower rent payment and I was doing what I could to prove myself at work so that I wasn’t in a position to lose my only source of income now that I was going to have another mouth to feed.  I was actually gearing up to go back to school full time at this time as well and I had to put that on hold.  It took several years for to find any sort of confidence in my “mommy” skills and to find the best routine and security in my job.  I did end up changing companies for a better family benefits package and more job security.  Now that I have established more security and stability, I no longer need to put school off, I am ready to go back.  I have already been setting aside time in advance to ensure that I can succeed in this venture.

Before I get ahead of myself, I guess I better get back around to describing what I have learned from being a mother.  I have learned more than can ever be put into words.  I learned what the true meaning of time management is.  You don’t realize how much free time you are wasting in life when you are younger until you forget what sleep is and pray for an extra 5-10 minutes in the morning to make it to work on time.  I have learned what it truly means to be selfless and sacrifice for another human being.  Previously I had thought that I was being selfless in life, but until I was a mother I never knew how easy it would be to put someone else needs, future and wants before my own.  I learned what true unconditional love is.  I have always had love for animals, but never had the love I felt for a person been unequivocally unconditional.  I experienced the highest levels of stress and I learned the definition of “mommy guilt.”  I have fought so many internal battles as I have grown as a person and entered into the process of learning what it is like to care for another person’s every need; to wish any pain and any hurt could be taken into me so that my son would never feel a second of discomfort.  As my son has entered into toddler stage I have felt stress at the constant pushing of limits to constantly re-evaluate the way that I teach him in the best way possible for him.  The search for the best way is new and different every hour; some days every minute.  I have learned that in times of high stress I can reach anger much too quickly and that to yell can make me feel like the scum of the Earth.  I have learned that I need to be easier on myself, that some days are good, and some are bad.  Other lessons I have learned include learning how to take that deep breath and walk away until I am more level-headed.  I have learned that I am not alone and that as our family of two, we are a team and must move forward together.  Time management has become my best friend and has made me more efficient than I ever knew I could be at the most menial of tasks.  I was always good at multitasking, but I have become a machine now.

Most importantly when it comes to incorporating these lessons into being a prospective student, I now know my limits, I know what I can and can’t handle and I know that pursuing education further is the best plan for me to achieve long-term security for my small family.  The heightened confidence that I have achieved as a mother will be incorporated into bolstering my passion, drive and motivation to successfully accomplish this goal.  I have the ability to do this at this time in my life, as routine has become second nature.  I know that the longer I wait to get started, the more that I would enter into regret for lost time.  As I have learned so many lessons thus far as a single mother, I relish the idea of all of the new lessons I will learn in the future.

Pregnancy Facts

I got asked to share some facts about my pregnancy this evening and it really got me to thinking.  I wanted to share the ones I did already share and add to it, in honor of Liam's 3rd birthday party being today and thinking about how far we have come as a family in all of that time.  Taking me back to before he was born.  Enjoy!  I would love to hear your pregnancy facts if you don't mind sharing.

6 and a half months pregnant

1. I didn't find out I was pregnant until my 16th week
2. I found out I was having a boy 3 days after finding out I was pregnant
3. I knew immediately upon finding out that I was going to be a single mom
4. I had to go to work after this shocking revelation and was crying at work so much because I thought that there was no way that I would be able to do this
5.  I never thought that I would ever have kids
6.  Less than a week before I found out I was pregnant I told my grandma all that she would ever get from me were grandbabies
7.  I never had morning sickness
8.  I didn't start showing until I was almost 7 months along
9. I used to freak out about sleeping on my back so badly and cutting off Liam's air that I would be afraid to fall asleep
10.  When I would fall asleep I would sometimes wake up on my back and lay away all night on my side afraid that I was going to hurt him.
11. I got asthmatic bronchitis so bad when I was almost 9 months pregnant that I had to be rushed to the emergency room when I was unable to breathe
12. the next week after going to the ER I was unable to breath again but instead went to the medicenter.  The doctor told me that if I would have waited another hour or more to be seen that I probably would have stopped breathing completely and would have died.
13. I was so happy that Liam was a boy and not a girl because I was worried about my complete inability to do a little girl's hair haha
14. No one in my office believed me that my baby was going to be mixed
15.  Due to the movies Due Date and Get Him to the Greek, Liam was dubbed zebra baby and I used to be serenaded and sing along to There's an African Child Inside Me"
16. I have never felt so alone and so sad in my life as when I was pregnant and had no family near me.
17.  I moved when I was 8 an a half months pregnant, it was awful
18. Liam was almost born 2 weeks early due to a low birth weight and my fluid levels dropping dramatically (most likely caused to the treatment I had to undergo for the bronchitis)
19. In the last week before Liam was born my doctor went back and forth at least twice a day about whether or not I was going to be having a C-Section or a natural birth.  He ended up being a preemie born 2 weeks early.
20. I never knew what love was until the moment I realized that I really was going to be a mother and many months before Liam was brought into this world.

21. I went through a lot of names before I made a choice, but the final four were Orion, Nyx, Connor and Liam.  My mom hated the name Nyx and kept telling me it sounded dark.  I went to high school with someone named Connor and ended up vetoing it because I wasn't no predisposition on the name of my son.  I was fairly sure that I was going to go with Orion instead of Liam until the last few weeks, when Liam seemed to be the chosen name.
22.  During my pregnancy I swear they played 80% of commercials about pregnant women and their significant other out doing things for them.  I used to cry hysterically in realization about how completely alone I was in this and that I didn't even have someone to go to the store and buy me some m&ms.  (The stupid M&M one played constantly with the guy asking if she wanted something sweet or salty when they were pushing for the pretzel m&ms, it made me cry every time)
23.  In the beginning of my pregnancy I was called a lot and yelled at for ruining someone's life and for choosing to not have an abortion. 
24.  I was very happy that I was having a boy, even though my first thought was that I wanted a girl.
25. I was really worried that there would be something wrong with Liam, since I didn't know I was pregnant for so long and had consumed alcohol.  I had a lot of tests done to check for all kinds of abnormalities.  Luckily all of them came back negative.
26.  I fount out I was pregnant by going to get an IUD put in and they make you do a pregnancy test just in case and it came back positive.  At that point I thought that I was at most 5 or 6 weeks along.
27.  An ultrasound came back showing I was 16 weeks pregnant.  I was crying so much and in such shock that the nurses and doctor felt so bad for me that they didn't charge me for my visit.
28.   I didn't have any craving for foods that I didn't already eat but I did need to eat ice cream at least once a day most days more.  My freezer used to be so stocked with about 10 flavors a time at all times.
29.  I had an aversion to citrus, if I drank or ate too many high citric foods I would get horrible heart burn.
30.  I had never had heart burn in my life and was at work on night shift the first time that I was overcome with heartburn.  I felt such an intense pain that I called my mom and asked her what it would feel like if I was having a stroke haha.
31.  I don't get heart burn since, but I do start to feel sick if I have too much citrus even after my pregnancy.
32.  I could NOT sleep on my side.  I tried every freakin' body pillow I could find and they just made it worse.  I had horrible sleep for my entire third trimester.
33. I was so worried about getting stretch marks that I did intensive research into how to avoid them and ended up going with coconut oil that I would rub extensively on my belly 3 times a day.  I did get stretch marks but not anywhere that I had put the coconut oil. 
34. I would even cry at movies like Knocked Up because even though the movie was jacked up and supposed to be a comedy, the child's father wanted to be a part of the baby's life and made an effort.
35.  I would drive to work and hear a song that would make me revel in how much I already loved Liam and would end up crying with absolutely no understanding as to how he could have a father that didn't love him in the same way.
36.  I would also be immensely sad about the fact that I would have to explain to Liam why there was just me one day.  However, given my own situation I felt that it was no accident and that I would be well equipped to relate in many ways to it.  I kept hoping that I would find someone who could become his father and be a good male role model for him before he reached the age of caring and feeling animosity otherwise...
37. I thought that when I found out that Liam was a boy that I would have to fight to have him take my last name and was pleasantly surprised when the other party had no desire to give him his own last name.  Given my experience with men wanting to carry on their line and family name. 
38.  At the end of my pregnancy I only weighed about 26 or 27 pounds more than when I first found out.
39.  I always had to wear an orange medical bracelet to every doctor's appointment and every nurse in labor and delivery knew me as the anesthesia girl due to my malignant hyperthermia and inability to take many local anesthetics. 
40.  Before my final week I went in to a doctor's appointment and was 3 weeks out from Liam's due date when there was a scare and they almost made me go emergency C-Section.  I remember that my last meal I was going to have at that point was a Burger Barn burger and fries haha.  My mother was frantically doing what she could to make sure that she would be in the delivery room with me.
41.  I attempted to sign up for 4 different birthing classes when I was told by each one in their own way that without a partner I was not welcome and would make other people in the classes uncomfortable, as they were really only designed to have both parties or a birthing partner present in order to attend. 
42.  I didn't attend a single birthing class and read numerous things online and purchased many books because I had no idea what the heck I was doing.  Thinking I was never going to have kids in life I was completely clueless about birth and very scared haha. 
43.  I went for a walk with Kiri at least 6 times a week and tried to cherish each moment as the last that we would have together with her as my one and only.
44.  I did Hip Hop Abs (low impact only) during my entire pregnancy and had awesome obliques up until the end.
45. In my cluelessness I had no idea how maternity leave worked and thought that I would get to take time off before the baby was born to prepare and was rudely awakened when I found out that I was meant to work up until the last moment
46.  I remember feeling Liam kick and think about how awesome it was and immediately crying because I had no one to share it with.
47.  So many guys told me during my pregnancy that they wished it was their baby that I was somewhat freaked out.  When I was being told how they would handle things and how they wished they had gotten me pregnant to be in my life forever...  I finally resolved to take it as an interesting compliment.
48.  I was constantly being told by people (especially at work) what I could not do now that i was pregnant.  The number one thing I was told was that I should not wear heels and that I wasn't allowed.  I wore my heels up until the last day (My doctor has absolutely no problem with it as long as it was not uncomfortable to me)
49.  I never knew how many people would interject themselves into my life and tell me what to do with mine until I got pregnant.  So many people that I didn't even know without ever being asked would tell me their own helpful tidbits about life and parenthood.

50.  When I found out I was having a boy my first concern was that I wouldn't know how to teach him to pee standing up and that I would fail as a mother....  although Liam is potty trained now, we are still working on perfecting this skill.